Mostly Human: The Full Confessions of Remus Lupin
by FantasyGirl1992
Summary: With his friends dead and the (unconfessed, unrequited) love of his life in Azkaban for killing them, Remus Lupin has no one left to turn to. Following Remus from Hallowe'en 1981 onwards, we'll see the best and worst of our favourite werewolf as he tries to get by in a hostile world. Lots of Wolfstar, but with a (long!) Remus/OC detour. Rated M for dark themes, slash and smut.
1. 1st November, 1981

**AN: First things first, I do not own Remus Lupin or anyone or anything else you recognise. **

**Secondly, it's in the description but worth repeating, this fic contains depressing themes, slash, and smut. If this is likely to upset/offend you or your mind is innocent and you want to keep it that way, this isn't for you.**

**Thirdly and for everyone who's left, thanks for joining. I'm at uni atm and generally horrifically busy, but updates will be at least once a week and hopefully more.**

**Enough from me, over to Remus.**

* * *

It didn't occur to anyone, on the night of Hallowe'en 1981, to get in touch and tell me that James, Lily and Peter had all been murdered by Sirius Black. Like most of the wizarding world, I had to wait to read about it in the _Daily Prophet_ the next morning.

Much of the front page was taken up with a photograph of James, Lily and Harry. _The Boy Who Lived,_ read the headline.

I skimmed the story on the front, which told me that Harry had survived the killing curse and the Dark Lord had apparently disappeared. I could derive no joy from the news. If James and Lily, two of only a handful of people who had any faith in me, who considered me to have any sort of worth, were dead and gone, then the world could only be a less friendly place to me than it had ever been at the height of the Dark Lord's power.

Things got worse as I turned to page three. Another photograph of James and Lily, without Harry this time, greeted me, alongside their obituaries. The words – expressions of regret, praise for the young, talented, promising couple, well wishes for Harry – felt oddly hollow. The rest of the wizarding world, unlike me, was first and foremost concerned with celebrating the fall of the Dark Lord, and mourning the dead was a secondary concern, today.

As it was for me, though for different reasons.

Pages four and five were mostly given over to a photograph of James, Lily and Sirius, laughing together on the Potters' wedding day. The accompanying article told me that Sirius, as the Potters' secret keeper, had betrayed them both; had then tracked down and murdered Peter Pettigrew and a dozen muggles; and was facing life in Azkaban, without a trial.

The article said that Sirius had laughed when the aurors came to arrest him.

Sirius had killed Peter in the street adjacent to my London flat. I couldn't help wondering if one or both of them had been coming to me. Had Peter wanted protection? Had Sirius been going to kill me next?

Would I have been able to fight Sirius? I suspected not, not even if my life or anyone else's had depended on it.

I stared at the photo. Sirius' face was full of love and life and laughter. I felt the familiar tug from somewhere in my stomach and set the paper aside face-down on the bed.

At the time I was living in a single-roomed flat, paid for by James. He had tried to insist on somewhere larger and more comfortable, but I wouldn't hear of it. "I'll only wreck the place," I had pointed out, and looking at the state of the flat that morning I reflected that I had been right. Every full moon, I would cast silencing charms so the muggles around me wouldn't hear my screams and howls, lock and bar the door and window, and transform. The furniture had chunks missing from it and the wallpaper was torn and mangled.

Now that James' money had gone along with him I would have to find somewhere else to live. I set the thought aside as something to worry about later.

I sat on the bed next to the paper and took stock. When I had woken up, I had thought I had four friends – James, Sirius, Lily, and Peter. Now it turned out I had three corpses and a convicted killer in the address book, and that was it.

Or was it?

I retrieved the paper and examined the front page again. The _Prophet_ gave no indication of what had happened to Harry. He had survived, that much was clear, so presumably someone, somewhere, had him safe.

As I sat there, a thought began to form in my mind. I now recognise that the thought was irrational, but at the time it had made perfect sense.

James and Lily were dead. By rights, therefore, Harry should have gone to his godfather, but his godfather was languishing in prison. And who, after Sirius, had been James and Lily's best friend?

A hope, unrealistic and yet seductive, began to form in my mind. It was more comforting than dwelling on the fates of my friends, so I focused on it, let myself believe that it could be realised.

I went to Dumbledore. I knew he would know where Harry was. I apparated into Hogsmeade and walked up to the castle that had been the first place I had ever found acceptance. As I walked I became more and more convinced, more and more deluded, that my plan would work.

I went straight to Dumbledore's office. He was there, looking as exhausted as I felt and nearly as destroyed. I told him out and out that Harry should come to me.

"I was James' best friend," I said, a statement we both knew to be inaccurate – but neither of us were willing to bring up Sirius. "It's what he would have wanted."

Dumbledore pointed out, gently but firmly, that I was a single man with no money and no home, and who turned into a bloodthirsty, uncontrollable killer once a month; and that as such I was completely unfit to care for a child. I argued briefly but was soon forced to concede defeat.

With that particular door slammed harshly but quite correctly in my face, I had nothing left to shield me from the crushing misery of what had happened. I left Hogwarts and went to Godric's Hollow, where I found the Potters' house in ruins. Of course, I should have known, I had read about it in the _Prophet,_ but nothing could have prepared me for the sight. The entire upper floor appeared to have caved in on itself. Windows were shattered, the door hung off its hinges, and the whole structure seemed to sway unsteadily in the wind.

Someone had already set up a monument. I stood in front of it trying to feel something, but I couldn't. The monument seemed pointless, when the house behind it already told of all the sorrow and the bravery the stone was supposed to commemorate.

I didn't linger for long.

I returned to London and collected up the few belongings I had that were worth keeping. I had no intention of waiting for my muggle landlord to come and throw me out. I might have fallen pretty low, but I would not sink to _that_ indignity.

I wandered the streets of London, wondering what to do. Everything I owned fitted into one trunk. What was a werewolf to do when he had no friends, no family, willing or able to support him?

An old memory flickered to the surface. There had always been rumours, at school, that there were werewolves hidden in the forbidden forest. I knew the rumours to be false – it was one of the first things James and Sirius had insisted on investigating once they mastered the animagus transformation, and I had reluctantly agreed. Of course, I should have known we would find nothing. Given the care Dumbledore had taken to keep his students safe from me (or tried to), he was hardly likely to allow wild werewolves to roam so close to the school.

But would it be so bad, going feral in a Scottish forest somewhere?

Not the Forbidden Forest, of course. There was only one werewolf I knew of who would deliberately station himself so close to so many young victims, and I had no intention of being associated with him. I was better than that.

But actually, woods in Scotland would be the perfect place to ensure that I wasn't in danger of running into anyone during my monthly transformation. And no one would be charging me rent, either.

Looking back, I can scarcely believe I was ever so wretched and desperate to apparate back up to Hogsmeade and, from there, stride off into the Scottish wilderness. I am sure, looking back, that I could have thought of something less drastic, though even now I can't put my finger on what that less drastic course of action might have been.

But there I was, back at Hogwarts, and heading north. My trunk was heavy, and my levitation charms kept wearing off, making it drop suddenly and without warning onto the ground in front of me, causing me to trip; or else directly onto my feet, which was even more painful. November is not a pleasant time to be wandering the Scottish moors; my threadbare cloak did nothing to keep out the unbearable cold.

Finally, after hours of walking, I hit the outskirts of a large forest. I had no intention of settling on the exposed moors, but as the trees thickened around me, I felt increasingly as though I had found the right place for me to be. After all, wolves had been running wild in these forests for centuries before the muggles had hunted them out.

The deeper I advanced among the trees, the safer I felt. I suppose I had spent so much time in my youth gallivanting around the Forbidden Forest (albeit not normally alone, or even in human form) that the way the trees blocked out all the light was comforting and familiar rather than threatening. But there was something else. The further away I got from civilisation, and from real life, the easier it was to forget the mess I was leaving the wizarding world in, or as least my place in it. It was easy to pretend, here among the trees, that James, Lily and Harry were all at home playing exploding snap; that Peter was helping his mother de-gnome the garden; that Sirius was riding around on his flying motorbike, his long dark hair fluttering as he rushed through the air…

_Enough,_ I told myself. _Enough, now._

Of course, as a man, I was not hugely tempted to sleep in the forest without some sort of shelter. Unfortunately I had no tent, or anything else that could pass as a roof, however temporarily.

And so, even though it was dark and getting rapidly colder, I set about constructing what would be my home, as it turned out, for the next fourteen months. It was one of those occasions when I was truly thankful of my ability to do magic. Transfiguring a large oak into a kind of makeshift home was far easier than it would have been to cut the tree down, carve it up into planks, and build a shed out of it.

The result was like something out of a muggles' children's book. Peter Pan lived in a tree, did he not? I couldn't change the shape of the oak but I managed to extend it and hollow out the trunk. Inside I tried more extension charms, so that the "house" was bigger inside than out. I successfully transfigured the grass into carpet, magically sealed the cracks in the bark to make proper walls, and purged the tree of bugs with an extermination charm. The result was watertight, reasonably warm, and hopefully free of any forest creatures hoping to share the place with me. I summoned up a door to fit over the entrance, decided against a window (I wasn't sure I was up to glazing, even with the aid of magic) and went back outside to recover my trunk and find some things to transfigure into furniture.

I managed a bed out of a log, which was lying some yards away, and a chair out of an old tree stump. As for a kitchen, I would have to make do, at least for the time being, with a fire outside – although, of course, food being one of the exceptions Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, I would have to find something to cook on it – and I hardly needed a dining table, since no one would be coming to visit, or to tell me off if I spilt food on the carpet.

All things consider, it was basic but no worse than my flat in London had been – and in fact, it would probably be more cheerful, as there would be no need for me to lock myself up in there during my transformations and rip such belongings as I had apart.

I would, of course, have to remember to renew the charms on a regular basis, to keep my new home from returning to its original, far less welcoming state, but that was an inconvenience I could probably live with.

I had just over a week before the next full moon. A week as a man living in wolf's environment.

I suspected I would manage that far better than my inner wolf coped with a man's world.

I dragged my new furniture inside the tree-house (ho, ho) and finally brought in my trunk. To say I then unpacked would be something of an overstatement. I had only two changes of clothes, some old photos, a chipped mug, and for some reason, the copy of the _Prophet_ that had brought my whole world crashing down around me.

_Well,_ I thought, _at least the fire will have something to burn on._

Back outside, I made up a pile of sticks and shredded the paper, scattering the fragments around the pile. Torn pieces of the Potters' faces looked up at me, still laughing and smiling away. Defiantly I tore Sirius' face right in two, but each half flashed with youth and cheer and life, and it felt like a hollow, inefficient gesture. I fumbled for my wand and set fire to the right hand side of his face, watching glumly as the flame spread through the paper scraps and eventually caught on the twigs.

I had a little coffee in my trunk, and what was left of a loaf of bread. Aware that I hadn't eaten all day, I burnt myself some toast, and boiled some water (thank Merlin that water does not count as food, and _aguamenti_ is still acceptable to dear old Gamp) to make coffee. The meal, such as it was, was hardly satisfying, but it was something, and perhaps when morning came I would be able to source some more food. I wasn't sure if I could kill a rabbit – not as a human, anyway – but there must be fruit, nuts, berries, or something nearby, and who knew what hunger would drive me to hunt, in the end.

With that slightly ominous thought, I returned inside, settled myself on my new bed, and fell into an uneasy sleep.


	2. 2nd November, 1981

**AN: The smut starts here. You have been warned.**

* * *

_Sirius was laughing. He was always laughing. It made his eyes sparkle._

_I lay on my bed in the Gryffindor tower and he knelt over me, straddling me, gripping me between his thighs. His hands were on my shoulders and he pulled me up and leant down simultaneously, so that our mouths crashed, and his tongue slid hungrily over mine. I lapped him up, feeling myself growing harder, sensing his own bulge against the inside of my left leg…_

_He came up for air and slid down my body. His quick, clever fingers made short work of the buttons on my pyjama top, and he grazed my chest with kisses as he went. Whenever he came to a scar, he would swirl his tongue around the sensitive skin in a quick, urgent motion, as I writhed underneath him._

_As he reached the top of my pyjama bottoms, I arched my back, lifting my hips up so that he could slide them down, exposing me. I knew what was coming and was so hard in anticipation, it was almost painful._

_Why did he always have to tease me? I close my eyes tightly shut and bunched the sheets up in my fists, biting down on my bottom lip as he did what he always did._

I woke up, shivering and sweating. The sheets were wet, as they always were when I woke up. The dreams, so vivid they could almost have been memories, so fantastic they could only ever have been imagined, persisted in coming, however firmly and frequently I told myself during the day to put them out of my mind.

_Really?_ I scolded myself. _Today of all days?_

But there was no getting away with it and I had no control over it. Sirius Black had come to me in my sleep just like he had every night since I was fifteen.

The dreams were where it had all started. In the waking hours I was completely, blissfully unaware of the hold my best friend had over me. I was straight, I was sure of that. Come to that I have _stayed_ sure of it, all through the torture of school, adult life, his time in Azkaban, and everything after. No other man has had the same effect on me in the whole thirty-seven years I've been alive. I never so much as looked at another man. Women, yes. Girls at school, women on the streets near where I lived, co-workers, friends. I am a hot-blooded male and I have frequently allowed myself to look, to imagine, and I did so especially when I was fifteen and had been accepted for the first time and had developed a deluded hope that maybe I could have a normal life in spite of what I was.

After the first dream, it took a lot of soul searching before I decided that Sirius was, must be, a mere anomaly. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was not gay. But Sirius…

Once the dreams had started, I began to take notice in real life too. Initially in my dreams I idealised him. Some details were unclear, so I had corrected them or finished them off in my mind, because awake I had never bothered to notice the shape of his legs, the curves of his buttocks, the exact size of the bulge in the crotch of his jeans.

Watching him became a fascination. Every night, the dreams became more real, as the details I had picked up during the day began to work themselves into the fantasies. I couldn't believe that I had never properly looked into Sirius' eyes before, wouldn't have been able to tell you that they were a startling, shimmering grey. In my dreams those eyes sparkled, looked deep into my soul, saw everything and took all of me for their own.

What started off as curiosity, experimentation (and how typical for me, stupid, nervous, unadventurous me, that all my "experimentations" occurred alone and asleep) grew into an obsession. I spent every waking moment with him. Of course I always had, but that was a habit, borne out of being part of a close-knit group of friends. But as time went on it became a need, as I consciously built my day around his schedule, making sure to maximise my time with him. I cursed my fourteen-year-old self for choosing Ancient Runes over Muggle Studies, so that for at least three hours a week my timetable forced me apart from him.

I began increasingly to resent James. I think that might be why I worked so hard to convince Lily to go out with him. Sirius was always annoyed when James was mooning over Lily, didn't like it that James paid more attention to her than to him. It wasn't enough for him to have my undivided interest, he always wanted James' approval, always, James' admiration. And he had it, for the most part, but when Lily came on the scene James could think of little else and Sirius had to resort more and more to my company.

We grew closer as we grew older. In our fifth and sixth years, he and James went through a phase of competitiveness. James had Lily to occupy his thoughts, but that wasn't enough to combat the slight to his pride when Sirius inevitably attracted more female attention than James himself ever did. The fact that Sirius only ever treated those girls with cold disdain, said he couldn't bring himself to touch them, only served to make things worse. James couldn't believe how arrogantly Sirius would shrug off the attentions that any other sixteen-year-old boy could only have dreamed of.

For myself, I allowed his disinterest to give me hope. What if he ignored these girls because he wasn't interested in girls at all?

I soon came to understand that this wasn't the case. Sirius was generally hard to impress. James had managed it. Somehow I had too. Peter never quite did. Something in Lily's ferocity charmed him. I don't think he ever respected anyone else, and he had spent his entire life hating those around him. After his miserable childhood he had no time left for anyone who he didn't love and respect unconditionally. If he ever bothered to fall in love, it would be just once, unfaltering and undying, with the same loyalty he showed his friends, and with someone truly incredible.

Basically, not with me.

Which was unfortunate, because the more I grew to understand him, the more I wanted it to be me. What had started off as a physical interest, based mostly around curiosity and an idle feeling that imagining could no harm, grew into what I finally came to recognise as love. Sirius' loyalty to me was something I could never have anticipated before coming to Hogwarts. Of course my parents had loved me, but beyond that I had always struggled to find anyone who wanted to spend any sort of time with me. If I'm honest with myself, that wasn't just the lycanthropy; I was a shy, awkward boy and shyness and awkwardness can come across as coldness.

I don't think Sirius ever found me cold. But of course I never told him what I felt, either. How could I? Sirius was straight, basically. Or at least he'd never given any indication to the contrary. Who knew, with Sirius?

I groaned and found my wand, clearing up the mess. Who knew with Sirius indeed? Who knew if he liked girls or boys? Who knew if he was secretly a Death Eater and would betray two of his best friends and murder a third?

x-x-x-x-x

The problem with _aguamenti_ was that it provided you with enough water to drink, but not enough to wash in. Setting up any kind of plumbing would have required magic that was beyond me. I had only one choice, therefore; it was time to explore my surroundings and find a proper source of water.

I wrapped up as warmly as possible and left my tree house. It seemed to be a clear, bright morning; it was hard to tell through the trees, but the light that speckled through the leaves was quite blinding, although it offered no warmth.

I set out with my wand raised. I suspected I was probably the most dangerous thing in this forest, but who knew for sure? At least the chances of running into another person were slim.

I wasn't walking for long before I spotted what looked like a clearing up ahead. I approached cautiously, hoping I hadn't accidentally set up camp too close to a human settlement.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

I found myself standing on the banks of an immense loch. For a few moments I had convinced myself that I had walked full circle and found myself by the lake outside Hogwarts; but while the resemblance was in some ways breath-taking, the differences were also stark. This loch was far bigger, and trees hugged the shore on all sides. Hogwarts was nowhere to be seen, and I was simultaneously relieved and surprisingly disappointed.

The bank was steep, but I scrambled down it, landing on a sandy lip that ran around the edge of the loch. I knelt to the ground and dipped both hands into the water, splashing my face with the clear, bitterly cold liquid. I blinked several times, and then, bracing myself for what was to come, began to undress.

I stripped down to my waist and washed my torso with water from the loch. Even I wasn't foolish enough to try to bathe there; I think it would probably have killed me had I attempted it.

I charmed myself dry and returned my shirt hurriedly, and stood, shivering uncontrollably. As facilities went, even Moaning Myrtle's bathroom would have been preferable.

I returned to my tree house.

x-x-x-x-x

I settled into a routine. Every morning I would wake, drenched in sweat and other fluids, trembling and exhausted as Sirius' image faded. I would curse myself for my on-going perversions, which continued even in the face of all I knew with retrospect. I would clean the bed, recast my charms to maintain the structure of my new home, and make my way to the lake. I would wash, dry, and then go about foraging for food. I could not bring myself to break the necks of the rabbits that scurried around the forest, but I somehow found it easier to slit open fish which I pulled out of the lake. In my tree house, I began drawing a map with my home at the centre, and marked on it the lake, the sites of various bushes laden with berries, and trees with crops of mushrooms growing at their roots.

All things considered, I thought, I could have been doing worse. After all, I could have given up and gone to the one man who would have been guaranteed to help me – but the price would have been more than I was willing to pay.


	3. 11th November, 1981

**AN: Sorry it's quite a short update today, but I hope the fact that the plot is actually getting started may make up for that. Longer chapter coming in the next few days.**

* * *

_We were in an alleyway somewhere in Hogsmeade. I don't know how I knew that, because I couldn't really see much. I was leaning against a brick wall, my head resting against my arms, the stone cold on my forehead and my eyes tight shut._

_Sirius' hands were on my waist. I could hear his soft chuckle in my ear, feel his breath warm against my cheek. His hands wrapped around me and one began to stroke my stomach, reaching under my shirt as the other went downwards to play with my belt buckle._

_He speckled my ears and cheeks and the back of my neck with kisses as the belt came away in his hand, and he made quick work of the buttons and zip of my jeans. With both hands, he pulled down my trousers, and cast my underpants down quickly after them. One hand reached back up under the shirt, caressing my skin, but I hardly noticed this. My entire focus was on the other hand and what it was doing, and on the intriguing bulge pressed against my left hip..._

The dreams were always more vivid the morning before a full moon. When I woke, I could feel tears burning in my eyes.

I rolled straight out of bed, cleaned up, and made my way outside. Today was not a day to dwell. Which was not to say I wouldn't anyway, but it would be worth avoiding it for as long as possible.

As I padded to the loch, I had a strange feeling that I was being watched, but I ignored it. I was always sensitive – paranoid, even – around full moon.

I washed. I fished. I gathered fruits and mushrooms. I returned to the tree house.

And found it gone.

I cursed my own stupidity. I had forgotten to renew the charms holding it all together – though I was surprised that they had disintegrated so quickly. I had refreshed them only the morning before, and normally my magic was stronger than that.

I set about the long process of recreating my makeshift home. I had been there for less than two weeks and I had already let me new life crumble around me, I reminded myself bleakly. I really didn't have a hope in hell of lasting more than a few months out here, and I had no plan for afterwards.

Full moon is not a day for dark thoughts, or for practical action, so I set my worries aside so far as was possible. I laid the fire and fried the fish; it was imperative that I eat before my transformation or my body might not be strong enough to recover. When I had choked down the meal, I went back to bed.

x-x-x-x-x

_Sirius was behind bars._

_I took a few steps towards him, gripping the bars tightly in my hands so that the knuckles turned white. Grinning, he stepped forward and intertwined his fingers with mine. I wanted to scream at him for being so calm and casual. He was in prison and yet he was smiling._

_But of course I didn't, because he was smiling to see me, and that made my heart skip beats all over the place and I couldn't speak. He wouldn't have replied anyway. He never spoke. He only ever laughed._

_His hands ran up my arms and he pulled me in towards him, so that I was being crushed against the bars of his cell. His mouth smashed roughly into mine, and I found myself hanging onto the bars for support as his hands ran down my sides and found my belt._

_With him incapacitated, I had to help him. I did so willingly, pulling down my trousers and exposing myself to him._

_Still in the cage, Sirius sank to his knees, and I regained my grip on the bars as I waited for him to make me howl. Even behind bars, he could always make me howl._

I was crying heavily as I woke. I lay very still, waiting for the sobs to subside, knowing I was hopeless to stop them. When I felt like I could, I found my wand, performed my usual cleansing charms, and got out of bed.

I knew instinctively that, as was so common at full moon, I had slept through the day. I groaned, and didn't bother to dress. Instead, not wanting to transform in what I tentatively considered to be my home, I staggered outside, naked, to see how long I had to wait.

Judging by the light levels, not long. The sun had nearly set and any moment now, I would be… not me, anymore.

I paced anxiously, knowing that there was no point in trying to do anything to distract myself now, it would happen soon enough.

I won't describe the excruciating pain of transformation. I explained it to Sirius, once, and he was so horrified he couldn't look at me without pity and anxiety for weeks. I hated it and decided not to make the same mistake again with anyone else.

Suffice to say that the next few minutes were not pleasant.

As the pain subsided a little, I looked around me. As a wolf on all-fours, my vantage point was significantly lower than that of a human, but I was hardly at a disadvantage. My eyesight was many times more powerful, like my every other sense.

The irrational fury that always filled me at this time began to rise from the pit of my stomach. I had to find something, anything, to go for, or I would start tearing at myself…

With an enraged howl, I darted off between the trees, and threw myself bodily into a solid alder. The bark crumbled easily underneath my claws, gave no satisfaction. I dug my teeth into a tree root, trying frenziedly to pulled it up out of the ground.

But something made me stop, and even the fury of the wolf abated as I sniffed the air hungrily.

The smell was unmistakeable. I gave a low growl.

A snarl behind me confirmed what I already knew. I turned swiftly, crouching to the ground as the other wolf approached.

The newcomer was younger than me, and female. And I, the expert that I am, could hardly have been expected to mistake her for a true wolf – even if I hadn't been able to smell it, even if I hadn't known that there hadn't been any wolves in those woods for centuries.

Her eyes were filled with bloodlust, and I felt the urge to attack rise in reciprocity. I wish I could say I fought it.

The she-wolf flung herself at me, and I leapt a split-second after, both of us barking furiously. I felt her jaws closing around her neck, but she was smaller than me, and weaker. I shook her off easily, snarling as her body was flung against a nearby tree.

She bounded to her feet at once, and with an enraged yelp, flew at me again. We met in the air and tumbled to the ground in a whirl of snaps and bites. I pinned her easily to the ground.

I don't think I would have ripped her throat open, but Merlin knows I wanted to.

Actually, I don't know who I'm kidding. I had no control, no capacity for rational thought. I was about to bite, and bite fatally, when she reared up, regaining strength from somewhere, and slashed my snout with her claws.

I reeled backwards, and in the momentary confusion she turned and scarpered.

I chased after her, but she was quicker than I was. I knew that I wouldn't catch her, but inevitably I continued the chase until I could no longer hear her. I could smell her, still, but there would be no recapture just yet.

But I knew she was out there, and I would find her.

For now, the urge to harm something, anything, was just too strong, and I threw myself against a nearby tree stump, tearing at it with my teeth.

x-x-x-x-x

The morning after a full moon, I never dreamt of Sirius. The morning after a full moon, I was never human enough to dream of anything.

I awoke, a man again, in the midst of a clump of trees. For a moment I panicked. I had no idea where I was, and it could take me hours to find my tree house again. For all that time I would be wandering naked in the woods. In November. In bloody freezing Scotland.

But then as I looked around, I realised that I had fallen only a little way from the loch. I made my way to the shore, and reassured myself that I knew where I was. There, not far away, was the bank I had scrambled down every day since my arrival. You could see where I had begun to wear a path into the mud.

As I walked home, slowly, painfully, my body as always complaining loudly about what I had put myself through the night before, I was struck by a sudden memory. I do not often remember my transformations. Back at school, after my friends started joining me, I began to remember. Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs kept me just sane enough to retain some sort of humanity, and while I had humanity I was capable of creating memories.

But last night, something had happened. It was nagging away at me, the knowledge that something important had happened. And yet I couldn't quite remember…

I reached up to rub my face, and found a fresh wound across my left cheek.

A grey paw, claws outstretched…

My knees buckled and I feel to the ground. My tree house was in sight, but I could not make myself get up.

Somewhere in these woods there was another werewolf, I remembered.

And that thought was enough to knock anyone to the ground.


	4. 12th November, 1981

_Sirius was not behind bars tonight._

_He was holding me almost painfully tightly, kissing me roughly. I didn't tell him that he was hurting me. Why would I, when the pain was so exquisitely beautiful?_

_I had no idea where I was. I didn't care, either. Sirius was here, biting frenziedly on my bottom lip, and I opened my mouth to let him in. His tongue danced over mine, tickling the roof of my mouth._

_He was tugging at my shirt, and I shrugged out of it, my fingers clumsily pawing at his own buttons. He helped me, making quicker work of it than I could; my hands were shaking too much to be any use._

_So often our sex was hurried, hasty, speeding on towards the moment when I would have to wake up. I was trying to slow him down. I fumbled with his flies, pulling at the buttons until the trousers began to slide down. I helped them, pulling earnestly, and he was reciprocating, digging both thumbs under the waistline of my jeans, stroking my hips as he exposed me._

_Suddenly, with breath-taking speed, he spun me around. For a moment, I was so wrapped up in my anticipation of what would follow that I didn't realise what was before my very eyes. But then he rammed me hard into the bars in in front of me and I was surprised by the sensation of cold metal against my bare skin._

_I had been wrong. Sirius was behind bars again tonight._

_The difference was, that so was I._

_The horror that filled my mind was vying for my attention, but even though I knew that this was important, that I should be worrying about why, exactly, I was apparently in Azkaban, I was finding myself lost as Sirius recaptured my attention. If anything, I was grateful for the bars – they gave me something to hang onto as my whole body shook with anticipation and longing._

_I turned my head to meet his lips, which only moments before had been nuzzling into my left shoulder. He knew what I wanted and he gave it to me, as I began to shudder uncontrollably…_

I woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. I looked around, remembered where I was, and sank back down onto the pillow, shaking.

Why in Merlin's name had _I_ been behind bars?

I decided that the issue was too big and complicated to address now, so instead I contemplated the more concrete problem facing me. Somewhere in these woods, possibly not too far off, there was another werewolf.

I lifted my hand and ran my fingers over the deep gasp across my face. And yet I couldn't feel angry at what she'd done to me. I had won, hadn't I? I had been on the verge of ripping out her throat, so I could hardly complain about a little scratch.

But she had got away. She had been too quick for me. That was a blessing.

Still, who knew what wounds she had woken up with?

After passing out in the trees about a hundred yards from my tree house, I had eventually come round and crawled back to bed. As always, I knew I would need to spend today dozing, drifting in and out of sleep, Sirius' face flashing before my eyes, until I had recovered my strength.

But at the same time, I felt that I had a responsibility. I had been able to sense that the other wolf was female, and younger than me. And she might be out there somewhere, injured or worse. Surely I should be trying to find her?

I tried to sit up but fell heavily back onto the pillow. Every muscle in my body ached, screaming in protest at whatever I had done to myself the night before. Or, perhaps, at whatever the she-wolf had done to me.

Her whimper as I had thrown her off me flashed suddenly into my mind and gave me new resolve. I sat up again, firmly planting both hands on the bed on either side of me to support myself. I sat still for a few moments until my head stopped spinning, and then swung my legs out of bed.

I stood and promptly stumbled. I sat back down, waited again, and eventually made it to my feet without falling.

I dressed as swiftly as I could, considering that I had to stop every few moments to regain balance and breath, and went outside. I found a fallen tree branch and transfigured it into a walking stick. I hated the idea of being dependant on such a thing, but it was an emergency. And anyway, the only other person around for miles would probably be in a worse state than me, so what did it matter?

I hobbled off through the trees. Of course I had no idea where she might be, but there were clear traces of my own progress through the night – trees with scratches gouged out of them, shattered branches – and eventually, after I had been following the trail for a while, splatters of blood.

I had no idea whether the blood was hers or mine. The gash in my face was still fresh, not to mention countless others across my chest and thighs, and it was likely that I would have been dripping all over the forest. I tried to remember whether she had been bleeding when she ran off, but the memory was hazy, as though blurred by too much fire whisky.

I found myself standing in a small clearing, and as I looked around me, more and more began to spill back. There, to my left, was the tree whose roots I had been digging up when she found me – huge chunks of earth had been displaced by my efforts. Which meant that there – yes, there, to the right – was the tree she had fallen against when first I threw her off, and that here, where the earth had been disturbed, was where I had pinned her to the ground and prepared to deal her a death blow.

I went to examine the tree to my right. Bending down, I peered closely at the bark near to the ground and eventually found what I was looking for – a streak of dried blood crusting over one of the exposed roots.

Once, in fifth year, Professor Cruento, an old Italian warlock who had taught us Defence Against the Dark Arts for that year, had mentioned an ancient charm that would allow you to trace a person using a sample of their blood. The idea had struck a chord with me; it always worried me that one day I would hurt Padfoot or Prongs or Wormtail and they'd go staggering off into Hogsmeade and no one would be able to find them, save them. It had taken a trip to the restricted section, with Cruento's permission, to find the charm, and many attempts to learn it properly – I had to use samples of my own blood, not being willing to experiment on my school mates, and if Sirius, James, and Peter had not been used to random scratches appearing on my body at a particular time of month they might have become suspicious. I didn't want to tell them what I was up to lest they should take it upon themselves to offer me drops of their own blood, turning it into a twisted game of hide and seek.

Cruento had been thrown out by Dumbledore after a year, once it had turned out that he was a committed muggle-hater, and last I heard had been arrested as a Death Eater. I have no idea whether he was guilty or not, but that didn't seem to matter much to the Ministry, these days. He would rot in Azkaban.

I forced myself not to think about whom else was rotting in Azkaban and to focus on the spell. It took a couple of tries, but eventually I felt the strange tugging sensation that indicated that it had worked. I stood and stumbled off in the direction towards which the magic dragged me.

It took nearly an hour before I found her.

She was sprawled on the ground, at the foot of an immense tree, and looked as though she had been asleep ever since she transformed back into a human. She lay on her stomach, completely naked, her golden brown hair spanning in a wide arch around where her head had fallen.

I removed my cloak and threw it over her, drawing my wand to cast warming charms. I ran a hand over her arm, which was as cold as ice.

As the warmth from my spells began to seep over her, she started to stir. She looked blearily up at me, then, registering what was happening, she tried to sit up, but she was even weaker than I was. Her expression was startled and untrusting.

"Hush," I murmured, wrapping my cloak more tightly around her. "I won't hurt you."

She eyed me with suspicion, but she didn't seem to have the energy to care whether I would harm her or not. She nodded once, and her eyes flickered closed again. I wasn't sure if she had fainted or just fallen back into sleep. Maybe she thought I was a dream.

She had fallen against my arm and I looked down at her, my heart thumping wildly. She was younger than I had imagined, eighteen at most, and even more thin and drawn than I was. Or at least, than I had been when I last looked in a mirror, back in my flat in London – who knew how haggard I looked now?

I gently laid her back on the ground and found my wand. I lifted her magically, knowing I was too weak to physically carry her, and let her levitate about two feet in the air, just in front of me. I would have to be careful not to let the spell wear off, or she would fall and hurt herself.

It took nearly two hours for me to get her home, and the sun had almost gone down when I saw the silhouette of my tree house.

I knew it would be tricky to manoeuvre her through the doorway, so I carried her in my arms instead. She was impossibly light.

I lowered her onto the bed, and summoned a curtain to run around it so that she could have some privacy. Once I had her settled (she never woke up, not through the journey, not through my putting her to bed) I went to find a log to transform into a second bed for the night. Maybe in the morning she would have a home to go back to, I thought. But if she didn't… well, I couldn't very well throw her out, could I?

I tried to ignore the rising sense that I _wanted_ her to stay. I knew nothing about her, but she was another human being – or at least, as much of one as I was – and I don't think I had realised until I saw her how much I had missed human contact.

Once I had set up my own bed (which required a further extension charm on the tree house – I had never expected it to have to house more than one person) I went back outside. I hadn't been to the loch to fish today but I had an assortment of mushrooms, nuts, and berries, so I boiled them all together in a pathetic attempt at a stew.

Just as I was finishing up, the door to the tree house opened and the girl came out. She was still wrapped in my cloak.

I looked at her and she at me, but neither of us spoke. She approached very slowly, and then sank onto the other end of the log I was sitting on. I handed her a cup of the watery stew and she took it wordlessly, staring absently into the fire.

"I tried to make you leave," she said eventually.

I don't know what I had been expecting her to say, but it certainly wasn't that. "What do you mean?" I asked, my brow furrowing.

She looked up at me, as though not seeing me. "I knew you was living here. I tried to rip the place apart so you'd move."

I cast my mind back to the previous morning, when I had returned to me tree house and found it demolished. I had known that it had been too soon for the magic to have worn off.

"You reversed my spells?" I asked dumbly, but she was shaking her head. "No wand. Never learned. Just smashed it up a bit and that must of made the charms wear out."

I nodded slowly. That would have done the trick.

"I wanted you to get away in case I bit you," she explained wearily, staring into the dwindling fire. "Guess it didn't work."

I gave a hollow laugh. "It was a bit late to save me."

She didn't seem to be listening. "I never bit no one before," she said, and something in her voice broke as she spoke. I suddenly realised that she had completely misunderstood.

"Wait," I said, frowning. "You think you did this to me?"

"Well, yeah." She looked up, her eyes suddenly full of doubt. "I did, din't I?"

"No!" I could almost have laughed. "Don't you remember? I was already a wolf when you found me?"

She was shaking her head. "I don't remember nothing much."

I really did laugh then, with a sick sense of relief. I could only imagine how it must feel to think you'd bitten someone, and I was genuinely glad to be able to displace her fears. "I was bitten when I was six," I told her, staring deep into her eyes as I saw the relief rising in them.

"So you was… It's not my fault."

"Not at all," I reassured her. "I'm not convinced you'd even have been born."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-one," I told her, and she nodded once. "I'd of been two. And I weren't bitten til I was eight."

I calculated quickly. "So you're seventeen?" She was an adult, then, but only just.

"Who are you?"

The question took me by surprise, but I suppose it shouldn't have. It was, after all, perfectly reasonable that she should want to know. "My name's Remus Lupin," I told her gently. I cast my mind for more to add, but I couldn't think of anything. About all I had left was my name.

"Kay," she said, and it took me a moment to realise that she was telling me her name, not just abbreviating "Okay."

"Kay," I repeated, and then thought of something. "I should have offered you some clothes."

Clothing is another of Gamp's exceptions, so I couldn't summon her anything, but I could give her my spare shirt and trousers. I went and found them, and she went inside to dress, without thanking me. I put this down to her being in shock rather than rudeness.

When she came out, I realised what a ridiculous gesture it had been. I was small, but she was tiny; the shirt engulfed her, and she seemed to be having to hold the trousers up with her hands. "I should go get me own stuff," she reflected dully, hoisting the waistband a little higher in a vain attempt to get it to stay in place.

"Are you living in the woods?" I blurted out, before I could stop myself. She nodded. "Nothing fancy like this though. I got a tent."

I almost laughed again, hearing my tree house described as fancy. "Stay here tonight," I told her, without thinking. "You can get back when it's light."

She gaped up at me, and I realised what I had just suggested. "I mean… I didn't… Just if you want to…"

"Would I have to…" she paused and I stared, wondering what she was getting at. "I mean… would we have to…"

"No! Merlin, no!" The thought filled me with horror – she was so young, and so vulnerable.

"Oh. Thanks," she said, and disappeared back inside without another word.

I decided to wait outside to give her time to get to sleep. When I finally crept inside, the curtains were drawn about her bed. I collapsed onto my own and fell into an uneasy slumber.

* * *

**AN: Firstly, a little geeky point about the Gamp thing; they don't say in the books what the other four exceptions are, but someone somewhere has written a very long discussion on what they might be and clothes was one of the suggestions which I think makes sense, so I went with it. Yes I actually wasted part of my life researching this. Nevermind.**

**Secondly, I know Kay's grammar's not good; that's deliberate. Otherwise, I do proof-read (twice, generally) but I was going back over one of my other stories the other day and still found an embarrassing number of typos, so I'm sorry if that's still the case here.**

**Thirdly, thanks to anyone who's read this far and sorry it's been a while since the last update - I'm in a very, very bad place with uni work right now but things should brighten up come Wednesday, so I'll try to make it up to you then ;)**


	5. 13th November, 1981

_Sirius seemed angry. He had me pinned to the bed – though it wasn't my bed in the Gryffindor common room, as it usually was, but a hard, bare cot in a cell – and was crouching over me, his palms firmly forcing me down and his mouth twisted in a snarl._

_Even in his rage, he bent to kiss me, and I could taste the heat of his anger on his lips. I didn't know what I had done wrong, but as he bit down roughly on my lower lip, I reflected that this was a punishment I could enjoy._

_His hands ripped at my clothes and my breathing became ragged as I heard the fabric shredding, felt his nails scratching against my skin. Still glaring down at me, he tugged away my jeans and tore off my underwear, splitting the seam in his hurry._

_I lay very still and let his fury wash over me, enjoying every second of it._

I jerked awake, and was momentarily thrown by my change in position. Why was I lying at the other end of the room (if you could call it that) to usual?

Then I remembered Kay and flushed instantly. I glanced over to her bed and saw that the curtains were still closed – thanking Merlin for the privacy I cleaned up hurriedly and rushed to dress.

My stumbling around the room must have woken her, because suddenly she pulled the curtains back. I was just buttoning my jeans, still shirtless, and could feel my cheeks reddening further as she surveyed the gashes and scars across my torso.

She grinned. "S'not all that bad, you should see mine."

I stuttered, trying to indicate that there was really no need for her to _show me hers,_ but then she was getting out of bed and I realised that she had kicked off my trousers to sleep, and was just in my shirt. Her legs were terrifyingly thin, and red lines criss-crossed the pale skin.

I turned away instinctively, finding my shirt and pulling it on. I buttoned it still with my back to her, giving her time to recover her – my – trousers.

When I looked back, however, she hadn't moved. She was surveying me with interest, and no apparent embarrassment.

"Er…" I wasn't really sure what to say. I desperately wanted her to get dressed. Quite apart from my awkwardness at having an underdressed female in my room, I didn't like to wonder whether any of those scratches had been gauged out with my own claws.

She sat down on the bed, still staring at me. "You talk in your sleep."

"What?" This was news to me, and for a moment I was distracted from my discomfort.

"Same word, again and again. 'Serious,' you kept saying." She tilted her head, watching me inquisitively. "Weird thing to keep muttering."

My face burnt as I realised her mistake and I had to turn away. "It is," I mumbled, heading for the door.

"Where you going?" Her voice was suddenly sharp.

"I…" Yes, where exactly _was_ I going? Dear Merlin, was I running away? Some Gryffindor I was. "I thought you might want some breakfast," I invented hurriedly, turning back to her.

She snorted. "You keep your food outside?"

"No… not exactly. I'll have to go find some."

"Can't you just magic some up?" she asked, sounding unimpressed. "What's the point of learning magic if you've gotta eat bits of stuff you find lying around?"

As I explained about Gamp, I was aware that my voice was taking on a school-masterly tone. Whenever he heard me talk like that, Sirius had always laughed and called me "Professor Lupin," though we all knew that there was no hope of anyone ever letting a werewolf teach children.

Kay, however, looked rapt. I realised that if she hadn't been to school, most probably no one had ever bothered explaining anything to her like that. Including, I had already noticed, grammar, though I had been trying hard not to correct her, sensing that it probably wasn't her fault.

"So we're still stuck eating mushrooms?" she said when I'd finished. "Buggrit."

I couldn't help but laugh slightly at the expletive. "'Fraid so," I confirmed, and she shrugged. "Alright. You get the nosh, I'll go get my clothes back." Without another word, she wandered straight passed me and out into the forest.

I followed after her, horrified. "You can't go like that!" I insisted, taking in her bare legs and feet. "You'll freeze!"

She turned back to me, shrugged, and suddenly sprinted off. I watched her go incredulously, then recovered my map and headed to where I knew there was a good crop of late blackberries.

x-x-x-x-x

Kay, now dressed in jeans and an oversized polo shirt, wolfed down the berries as soon as I'd handed them to her. "What do you eat normally?" I asked curiously as she shovelled them into her mouth.

"Same, really," she said with a shrug. "I kill rabbits sometimes."

My insides gave a squirm. "How?

Quicker than blinking a blade appeared in front of my eyes and I stumbled backwards, my eyes fixed on its point. Kay laughed. "S'alright, I won't hurt you."

I blushed furiously as I realised that I had treated a seventeen-year-old girl as a threat. "I just wasn't expecting…" I mumbled, but she laughed again without waiting for me to finish, collapsed the switchblade, and pocketed it. "You have to cut their throats," she said matter-of-factly, finishing off what was left of the berries.

I blanched.

"What?" she asked, noticing. "Nothing worse than what you were gonna do to me the other night."

The image of Kay as a wolf, utterly at my mercy, flashed before my eyes and I had no response.

She barked another laugh at my stunned silence, and in that moment I realised how similar her laugh was to Sirius'. "S'alright," she said. "I'd of got you if I could of, it was all fair game."

I wished I could be so blasé about my own blood-thirsty tendencies, but I said nothing. Nothing about either of our lives seemed fair to me.

"So why'd you come here?" Kay asked, surveying me intently.

I shrugged. "It seemed as good a place as any."

"But why _here?"_ she pressed. "You don't sound Scottish."

"Neither do you," I countered, unwilling to tell her too much about my recent history. Or any of my history, come to that.

"Mum and dad thought it would be a good place to leave me," she said matter-of-factly, leaning forward to warm herself against the fire.

"What?" I was stunned. Things had always been hard for my parents, but they would never have dreamed of shipping me off to live in a forest, just because of my… furry little problem.

She shrugged. "Well they couldn't keep me, could they?" she said nonchalantly, and fixed me with a piercing stare.

"Yes!" I protested instantly. "My parents did!"

She shrugged again. "So? Bet you didn't have two little brothers you could of bit. So they had time to look after you and love you and teach you magic, bully for you."

I could scarcely believe that another person was examining my life and finding things to be jealous about. "They didn't teach me magic," I said, for want of anything better. "I went to Hogwarts."

She gaped. "The magic school? How?"

"The headmaster…" I paused. There was nothing I could say to fully express the brilliance of Albus Dumbledore, or his kindness to me. "They sorted something out," I finished lamely. She was still staring at me, wide-eyed. "That's how I thought to come here," I said, trying to change the subject slightly. "We're not far from Hogwarts, you know."

She frowned, and stood up. I watched with slight trepidation, but she just stood and walked back inside the tree house.

I sat outside alone for a while, then decided to walk down to the loch. She probably needed some time alone, I thought guiltily. I had just made her realise that she needn't have had the life she'd had; there were parents who would have loved her, and teachers who would have taught her. She had been far, far less fortunate than I; and the revelation must have hurt.

x-x-x-x-x

I fished for dinner, aware that since there were two of us it would probably be worth making more of an effort to feed us both properly. I stuck my head in through the tree house door when I returned later afternoon, but the curtains around Kay's bed were drawn tightly shut. I decided, somewhat pathetically, to just leave her to it for a bit longer and went back outside to cook. Frying fish over a real fire takes time, and concentration; take your eyes off it for a moment and the scales will be burnt to a crisp, but the flesh still raw.

Once the food was cooked, I decided to bite the bullet and go to face Kay. The smell of the food must have disturbed her, because she drew the curtains as I walked in, two lumps of fish thrown clumsily on a large tray of tree bark, and looked at me, eyes wide and resentful. They focused in on the fish, and she swung out of bed, stalking past me to go sit down beside the fire.

I followed her wordlessly and gave her some of the fish, which she ate hungrily. "This ain't bad," she grunted after a while.

"Good," I replied, picking at my own food. She turned to look at me. "How come?"

"Er, how come what?" Somehow I didn't think we were still talking about the fish.

"How come they let you go to Hogwarts?"

My heart sank a little. I hadn't want to resume this topic, though on the other hand it was hardly surprising that it had been bothering her.

So I explained about Dumbledore, and how he had planted the Whomping Willow for me, and told her about the nights in the Shrieking Shack. I left out James, and Peter, and most of all Sirius, feeling guilty for doing so but unable to bring myself to share.

She listened wordlessly, then nodded once. "Could you teach me?" she asked, after a long pause.

I frowned. "Not without a wand," I said, and she looked disappointed. I stared thoughtfully at her. "I suppose we might be able to get you a wand…" I said, very carefully, a plan forming in my mind.

She looked startled. "What? How?"

I was working things out very quickly in my head. "If we went to London…" I continued slowly, and her eyes widened. "I ain't been to London since I were little."

I looked up, intrigued. "Did you live there?"

"Yeah," she said vaguely. "I don't remember much though. It's big. Lots of people."

I laughed softly. That seemed a massive understatement. "When did you come here?" I asked gently.

"When I were twelve."

I felt a fresh surge of anger at the thought that anyone would abandon a twelve-year-old girl alone in a forest to fend for herself. "And before that?"

"I lived in the cellar."

I was rapidly approaching the conclusion that if I ever met Kay's parents, I would bite them personally. And I might not even bother to wait for full moon. "Well, look," I said, not wanting to make her dwell on the subject of what had clearly been a miserable youth. "We'll go to London tomorrow, and I'll buy you a wand. And I'll try to teach you how to use it. Okay?"

She stared at me a few moments more, speechless. Then, still without speaking, she stood up and approached me. I felt myself tensing, unsure what was coming, as she leaned over me, looking me dead in the eye, her face inches away from mine.

Then, suddenly, she swooped in and her mouth crashed against mine. I sat, frozen, as her teeth clashed into mine. There was nothing about this that was anything less than excruciating. She clearly had only the vaguest idea how this was supposed to be done… _That's hardly the issue! _I screamed at myself as soon as the thought had crossed my mind. _She'd barely more than a child! And she's only doing this because she thinks she has to…_

She pulled away and surveyed me expectantly. I blinked at her, horrified, trying to piece together a rational train of thought in my head. After a pause – too long a pause – I managed to pull myself together. I leaned forward and took her hands, and felt her shiver. I was utterly disgusted with myself. I was sure I had done nothing to encourage this, but even so, she seemed terrified of me and what I might try to do to her.

"Kay," I said, very seriously, and she stared, listening closely, chewing anxiously on her bottom lip. "Kay. You don't have to do that. That's not why I'm doing this."

She gave a tiny nod, then wrenched her hands away and ran into the tree house. For the second time that day, I found myself shut out of my own home by the mood swings of a distressed teenager, and groaned. What, exactly, was I trying to achieve here? Why was I doing any of this?

_Because no one else is ever going to do anything for her,_ said a little voice in my head.

I stayed outside for as long as I could, until the cold set in, and then followed her inside. The curtains were drawn again and I was relieved, settling myself into bed. Tomorrow, after all, I would be in London again – and it might be helpful to get a little sleep, so that if I ran into anyone I knew, I would at least look like something approaching human.


	6. 14th November, 1981

_If Sirius had been angry the night before, it was nothing to how he was tonight, and this time I understood; Sirius was jealous._

_The idea was laughable. I had convinced myself, in sleep, that Sirius was in love with me to such an extent that a kiss, however unwillingly given, felt to him like a betrayal._

_He wrapped ropes around my wrists, so tightly that the skin burnt, and bound me to the bars of our cell. His cell. Not mine. I did not belong in a cell._

_Even knowing what I had done to him, I could feel nothing but the usual elated bliss once he had started. I gripped the bars to which I was tied tightly, breathing as steadily as possible as his furious attentions brought me closer and closer to ecstasy._

I awoke with a start, and instantly reached for my wand to clean the sheets. I couldn't hear a sound from Kay's bed, so I jumped up and dressed speedily, not wanting to be caught half-naked again. Especially not after…

_Forget it,_ I told myself firmly. _She'll be embarrassed enough without you making it worse. Just pretend it never happened._

She drew back the curtains just as I was finishing buttoning my shirt. "Hello."

"Hi." I smiled, hoping that it came across as kindly and not creepy. "Do you still want to go to London today?"

She stared at me for a moment, then nodded once. I smiled again and left the tree house, to find food and let her dress.

She emerged some time later, in the same jeans and polo shirt as the day before. "How do we get to London?" she asked, as I handed her a bowl of fried mushrooms. Understandably she wrinkled her nose at the food, but she still took it.

"We'll apparate," I told her. "Well, I will, and I'll take you side-along. It won't be very pleasant I'm afraid, but there's not much I can do about that."

She nodded, munching on the mushrooms. I sat next to her, tucking into my own. We didn't speak for a while, and then she said, "I haven't got no money, you know."

"I know," I told her. "But I've got a bit. We'll get a wand."

"And some proper food?" she asked, her eyes shining.

I laughed. "Maybe, yes."

I was calculating in my head, trying to picture my Gringott's vault. She could probably do with some new clothes – the ones she was wearing looked as though she'd been wearing them since she arrived in the forest. But I didn't have much, and what if I needed it someday?

_Living in a forest? What could you possibly need money for?_ said a little voice in my head. I reminded myself that I might not live in a tree house indefinitely, and it would be good to have some sort of resources when I left.

But then I noticed that the polo shirt was literally coming apart at the seams, and made up my mind.

"Come on," I said, and she jumped slightly – it had been a long pause since either of us had last spoken. "Are you ready to go?"

She nodded, and I held out a hand. She took it, and gripping it tightly, I apparated.

We emerged in the Leaky Cauldron. I glanced around, but fortunately I didn't recognise anyone I knew. I didn't fancy having anyone ask me what I'd been up to for the past few weeks - and now that my condition was effectively common knowledge in the wizarding world, many of my old school friends would have been disgusted to see me in public.

I began to lead Kay out to the backyard, but she seemed to have frozen.

I turned to look at her anxiously. "Kay? Are you alright?"

She was staring around her, mouth open. "I'd forgotten what it were like to be inside."

My stomach gave a little jolt. "Come on," I said, unsure how else to respond, and still holding my hand, she obediently followed me outside, drifting as though in a dream.

I tapped the wall and stepped into Diagon Alley, Kay following along behind me. I heard her give a gasp.

"Have you ever been here before?" I asked her as she drew close against my side, reflecting that I should probably have checked this before.

She was shaking her head.

I led her down to Gringotts, where I intended to near enough empty my vault. When Kay caught sight of the goblin at the door, she made a little choking noise and grabbed my arm.

"Are you alright?" I murmured, aware that the goblin was looking suspiciously at us.

"What is it?" she whispered back. I gaped at her, unable to believe, after all the years I had spent studying goblin rebellions, that she didn't even know what a goblin was.

I gave her a muttered summary as we queued, but was interrupted when it was time to present my key at the desk. Kay hung onto my arm, terrified, as we sped through the underground caverns of the bank in a little cart (I must confess I never quite stopped being afraid of those things myself). It dropped us at my vault, and I recovered a small heap of cash, trying to leave a few galleons behind for a rainy day.

Back in the lobby, I was struck by a thought; the only clothes stores in Diagon Alley were for wizarding robes, which would hardly be the most practical things in the forest. So I exchanged some of my sickles for muggle pounds and led Kay back to the Leaky Cauldron and out into muggle London.

"What about my wand?" she protested as she realised what was happening, but I shook my head. "Later."

I dragged her to a cheap clothes store and instructed her to find herself some things. She gaped around at the manic crowds pushing themselves between clothing racks and asked, "But what should I buy?"

I shrugged. Fashion was hardly my strong point. "It doesn't matter. Just get things that are comfortable."

Looking apprehensive, she disappeared among the crowds and I drifted off in search of some new shirts for myself.

It wasn't long before I felt a tugging on my sleeve. "I don't like it, Remus. How can there be so many people?"

I cursed my own stupidity. She'd been living alone in a forest since she was twelve. I was probably the first person she'd seen in five years; to let her go off alone in a place like was inordinately insensitive of me. I could see confusion and panic in her eyes and took pity. "Have you found some things?"

She nodded, anxiously showing me two new polo shirts, a jumper, and a pair of jeans. I gave a quick smile and we went to pay, her following so close behind me it was like having a second shadow.

Sensing that she might be happier in Diagon Alley, which was relatively quiet compared to this place, I took her back to the Leaky Cauldron. "I think we can go for what we came for, now," I told her, and her eyes lit up.

We headed down Diagon Alley to Ollivander's. I hadn't set foot inside the shop for more than ten years, never since buying my own wand. Subconsciously I reached for it, just to check that it was still there, and we entered the shop.

The shop was completely empty, and Ollivander was nowhere in sight. Kay and I waited, unspeaking, her gaping round at the dusty shelves, clearly intrigued.

"Remus Lupin. I did not expect to see you return to my shop. Chestnut and unicorn hair, twelve and a quarter inches, quite springy, am I right?"

I turned to see Ollivander, who had appeared as if from nowhere. At once the memories came flooding back – I had forgotten just how much he had scared me, when I was eleven. I nodded in answer this question, though I sensed he didn't need me too – he remembered that afternoon as clearly as I did.

"The young lady, I don't recognise."

"This is Kay…" I began, and realised I didn't even know her surname. She didn't supply one, and Ollivander didn't seem to notice the omission. "Kay. Charmed. This will be your first wand?"

She nodded slowly, apparently lost for words.

"Very well. Which is your wand arm?"

Kay looked to me in confusion. "Are you left- or right-handed?" I translated, and she held up her right hand, still speechless.

Ollivander nodded once, and set his tape-measure about measuring Kay. She flinched as the tape zipped around her, independently of its master, and Ollivander rummaged through the long, thin boxes at the walls. "Yes, all right," he murmured, and the tape-measure, which had been dangerously close to tying itself in knots, fell to the ground. "Here. Yew and phoenix feather, thirteen inches, unyielding."

Kay caught the wand he threw to her and turned to me, eyes wide. I was trying to indicate that she should give it a wave, but Ollivander seemed to have already come to a conclusion. "Oh dear me, no. Try this. Redwood and unicorn hair, very supple, eight and three-quarter inches."

Kay, catching on, gave the wand a small flick, but Ollivander gave a little chuckle and said "Oh no, what was I thinking? Here. Holly and dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches, rigid. How's that?"

The wand in Kay's hand erupted with golden sparks.

"Excellent!" beamed Ollivander. "I do so like it when we find the solution quickly – reassures me that still I know what I'm doing."

Kay gave a thin, forced smile as he took the wand off her and placed it back in its box. "That would be six galleons and four sickles."

I handed over the money, and Kay and I hurried out of the shop.

"He's creepy," said Kay, and I silently agreed, as we headed back to the Leaky Cauldron.

I had just enough left to buy lunch. I handed Kay a menu and her eyes almost burst out of her head. "I ain't had potatoes for five years."

I tried not to let her see how much that bothered me. "Choose whatever you like."

We ordered food and waited in silence. It wasn't _quite_ awkward, although it wasn't the most comfortable moment of my life either.

"Thank you," said Kay, very quietly, after a while.

I gave her a small smile. "You're very welcome."

"No, really." She was staring at a knot in the table top, her brow furrowed. "No one's ever done anything like that for me."

Fortunately I was saved from having to answer this by the arrival of the food. Kay had ordered half the menu, and after two weeks of berries and barely cooked fish I could hardly blame her. I couldn't even imagine how hungry she must be, after five years of that.

We both ate hungrily, and when she had finished Kay excused herself to use the bathroom. I glanced around me and my eyes fell on a copy of the _Prophet_. Thinking idly that it might not be a bad idea to see what had been going on in the wizarding world in my absence, I picked it up, and froze.

_The Death Eaters' Last Stand,_ read the headline. _Leading Aurors Tortured in Attempt to Find You-Know-Who. _Beneath those ominous lines was a photo of Frank and Alice Longbottom.

I had known Frank and Alice. They had been at school with us; Frank had shared a dormitory with me, James, Sirius and Peter. They had got married not long after James and Lily's wedding, and their son, Neville, was older than Harry only by a matter of hours.

I skimmed the story, feeling increasingly sick. Death Eaters had captured the couple and tortured them, apparently believing them to have information on the Dark Lord's whereabouts.

The names of those involved wrenched great chunks out of my guts. Rabasten and Rodolphus Lestrange, and the latter's wife, Bellatrix – Sirius' cousin.

He had always professed to hate her, but in the event he had followed in her footsteps – or rather had proceeded ahead of her into Azkaban. I wondered bitterly whether they would, for the first time in either of their lives, be pleased to see one another, faithful Death Eaters as they apparently were.

Then my eye was caught by another name, and I choked on the mouthful I had forgotten I was chewing.

Barty Crouch Junior.

I didn't even have the energy to assess the full implications of this, nor did I have the time, as Kay was emerging from the bathroom. I tossed the paper to one side. "Let's go."

She looked disappointed. "I thought maybe we could…"

"No. Come."

I grabbed her hand and we vanished, remerging in the cold clearing that surrounded the tree house.

Kay was looking puzzled. "Why did we have to…"

"We just did."

She watched me closely for a few moments, then shrugged. "Okay. In that case, can we start?"

I turned to look at her properly, and saw that she was clutching the box from Ollivander's shop, looking hopeful. I shook my head.

"Not today. Sorry, Kay."

"Are you alright?" she asked, her brow furrowing into a concerned frown.

"I'm fine," I lied. "But not today."

With that, I marched off into the trees, leaving her alone, confused and probably a little hurt.

x-x-x-x-x

When I finally returned late that night, Kay was already in bed. She had carefully laid the new clothes I had bought her out on the sofa, and the box containing the wand was perched on top of the neatly folded pile, waiting.

I knew that I should have been more patient. I knew that I should have given her an explanation. But Frank and Alice's faces kept flashing before my eyes, and the thought of Neville wrenched at my insides. I would never have believed, when I read the edition of the _Prophet_ relating James and Lily's deaths, that a child could undergo more suffering than Harry already had, but I was no longer so sure.

It took me a long time to find sleep that night.

* * *

**AN: I couldn't find any information on Remus' wand, so I made it up. In case anyone's interested, my thinking was as follows: according to Pottermore, the bigger a personality the longer the wand, so Remus' is a little on the long side - even though he's quiet and not very forceful, I think he has an incredibly strength of character and his wand would reflect this. The wand is "quite springy" as I think he would have to be very adaptable, with his condition and the general uncertainty of his way of life. Unicorn hair wands are quite faithful, and perform consistently, which seems right for Remus, because he calmly battles on regardless of what happens to him. Chestnut wands often go to wizards who are particularly good at dealing with magical creatures, which I think speaks for itself.**

**So there we go, a nice little demonstration of just how geeky I am! (Kay's wand was carefully chosen too, but I'm not going to dissect that for you, as it might give a few things away...)**

**Thanks to everyone who's been reading so far :)**


	7. 15th November, 1981

_Sirius was sitting on the small, hard bed that ran along one edge of his cell. Her looked up at me and held out a hand, which I took, and pulled me to sit beside him on the bed._

_His kisses were soft, yet urgent. As if he had missed me. As if he regretted being angry with me._

_I focused on the soft warmth of his tongue in my mouth, the gentle pressure of the hands running up and down my back, the feel of his hair brushing against my face. So often our encounters were hurried, desperate, passionate, and we rarely had time to enjoy each other like this. He lowered me onto the bed, and I lay beneath him, aware of the weight of his body against every inch of mine._

_Tonight, we were slow. Careful. Respectful, almost. For once he was not domineering, but tender. I don't know why, but tonight something was different, and it made my heart thud with desire and anticipation and love._

I awoke, humiliatingly, to find Kay already sat on the sofa, and watching me intently. Thankful that she couldn't see the mess for the blanket, I was nevertheless embarrassed, and even more so when she asked, "Who's Serious?"

"What do you mean, who's Serious? Serious isn't a name," I defended myself, trying to sound nonchalant.

"I know it ain't. But you make it sound like one. Who is she?"

I reddened. "He."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh."

I groaned and sat up, running my hands through my hair. I could feel the stickiness of last night's encounter on the sheets around me, but couldn't clean it up while she was still watching. "He was my best friend at school," I explained, hoping that she wouldn't question further. "And it's Sirius, not Serious."

"Sirius," she repeated, looking at me with her head on one side. Then she hopped up off the sofa and left the tree house. Thanking Merlin, I cleaned up, dressed, and followed her out.

She was prodding the embers of the fire with a stick she had found on the floor, trying to get it to rekindle. I could see that the fire was beyond rescuing without magic, so lifted my wand and muttered "Incendio."

"Can you teach me that?" she asked, immediately. I smiled.

"That might be a little advanced to start off with," I said. "But I'll teach you something today, yes."

She grinned. "Breakfast first though," I insisted. She nodded, and disappeared back inside for a moment. When she emerged, she was holding a loaf of bread.

I frowned. "Where did you get that?"

"Nicked it yesterday," she said casually, and I gave a splutter. "Kay!"

"What?"

"You can't just steal things like that! It's wrong!"

She shrugged. "Don't see why. It's only a few pence really. And letting us starve, that would be wrong."

I gaped at her, but allowed her to begin toasting slices of the loaf on the fire. After all, I could hardly return the loaf, and it would have been idiotic to throw it away on principle. And anyway, I was living wild now – maybe there was no place left in my life for human principles. So I took the burnt toast she proffered and ate without complaining further.

"So?" I realised that she was looking at me expectantly, having scoffed down her breakfast quicker than lightening.

"Go get your wand," I instructed, still eating, and she ran eagerly inside, leaving me to finish off my food. She scampered back out, holding the box containing her wand and looking desperately excited. She sat down on the log next to me, excitement etched onto her face.

I indicated for her to take out the wand and she did so, clutching it in both hands. I showed her how to hold it, and she obeyed, listening closely and watching how my fingers wrapped around my own wand.

"There are three main kinds of wand magic," I explained, as she sat, poised. "Transfiguration, Charms, and Dark Magic."

"Dark Magic?"

"Curses, hexes, things like that."

"Will you teach me that?" Her brow was furrowed.

I shook my head. "I don't know any," I said. "They didn't teach it at Hogwarts." The second part, at least, was true.

"So what're charms and trans… transfug…"

"Transfiguration," I helped her. "That's turning something into something else. Like I turned a log into your bed."

Her eyes widened. "Did you?"

"Well, where did you think I managed to find two beds out here in a forest?" I asked, amused. She didn't answer, so I continued. "Charms are used to change the properties of something. So I made the tree house bigger using a charm."

She nodded, eyes wide.

"Charms are a bit easier," I went on, "So we'll start with those."

"What are we going to do?"

I scanned my memories of the first year syllabus for something simple, but interesting, and settled on an old favourite. I looked around me and found the wand's box on the floor at Kay's feet. "How about we make that box fly?" I suggested, and a broad grin split across her face.

I demonstrated with my own wand first. "_Wingardium Leviosa_," I said clearly, swishing my wand in time with the long "aah," and finishing with a swift flick on the short, clipped "oh." The box levitated, hovering in front of Kay's astounded face. I chuckled at her expression and let the box fall.

"Can I try?" she asked at once, and I shook my head. "Slow down. Let's just work on getting the words right first."

"Okay…"

"Good. So, repeat after me. Win-gaar-di-um Le-vi-oh-sah."

x-x-x-x-x

About half an hour later, an ecstatic Kay was standing by the fireside, the long slim box hovering just above her waist. "I did it, Remus, I did it!"

"Very good!" I said, smiling warmly at her. "Well done."

"Can we learn something else now?"

"Maybe not just yet," I said, still smiling. "I don't want to wear you out."

"I'm fine! Teach me more."

"It's not all about wand work, you know," I said, as the box floated to the ground and she sat down beside me. "There're all sorts of things we learnt at Hogwarts."

"Like what?" she looked genuinely fascinated.

"Well, there was Astronomy… that's the stars and stuff. And Care of Magical Creatures, I liked that a lot. I did Ancient Runes too, but that's a bit geeky. History of Magic, Defence Against the Dark Arts..."

"What's Defence Against the Dark Arts?"

I sighed. "You remember we talked about Dark Magic?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, Defence is about protecting yourself from that."

"Will you teach me?"

I looked at her shrewdly. On the one hand, the Dark Lord didn't seem to be around anymore. On the other, his supporters definitely were, and who knew whether and where he had really gone? "Yes," I said eventually, "I think that would be a good idea."

She nodded. "And what else?"

"What else what?"

"What else did you learn?"

"Oh." I wasn't used to having someone hang on my every word like this; much less be interested in school and learning. James and Sirius had always told me off for being a nerd, and Peter had followed their example. "Well, there was History of Magic… Some people did things like Arithmancy and Divination, and Sirius did Muggle Studies, but I don't know much about them… Oh, and Potions, of course. But I was abysmal at that."

She was looking excited. "And you'll teach me everything?"

My eyes widened. "Not Potions," I said at once. "Like I said, I'm rubbish, and anyway we don't have a cauldron. And not the things I never studied, obviously… We can't do Astronomy, we haven't got a telescope. And I don't think you'd like Ancient Runes…"

"But History of Magic? And Care of Magical Creatures?"

I laughed. "Everyone hated History of Magic," I told her. "They all thought it was really boring. Even I did, actually."

"Teach me anyway," she demanded, and I smiled. "Okay." In truth, I was so delighted to have found someone interested in learning – in everything I had cared most about at school – that I would have probably tried to teach her to fly if she'd asked me. And Merlin knew, if there was one thing I was worse at that Potions…

Kay, meanwhile, was looking positively delighted. "I'm gonna be so clever," she crowed, and I grinned at her, not quite able to believe that I had managed to make someone so happy just by promising to talk about school.

"Tell you what," I suggested, standing up. "How about we go and pick some mushrooms, and on the way I'll tell you about the Goblin Rebellions."

"Goblins? Like them things we saw at the bank?"

"Exactly like that."

x-x-x-x-x

Come evening, we were sat outside by the fire, as I fried the mushrooms and toasted some more bread. Kay was sitting on the log, levitating random objects. She had listened avidly as I described the 1612 Rebellion, telling her in minute detail about the wizarding headquarters at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. She had been immensely impressed when I explained that I had actually been there.

"Is it still the same as it were then?" she asked keenly, and I couldn't help but laugh. "No. It's just an ordinary pub now."

And somehow, I had found myself telling her about the afternoons in Hogsmeade: the butterbeer; Honeydukes' chocolate; Zonko's joke shop; and before I could stop myself, the friends I had shared all that with; James and Lily and Peter and Sirius.

I hadn't told her a single story from after we left school. And once I had caught myself, realised that I was coming dangerously close to letting the shadows of my past into my new life, I had swiftly changed the subject, deciding instead to start Care of Magical Creatures, and tell Kay everything I knew about dragons.

She had been very overexcited when I told her there were dragons in Britain; especially when she realised that the Hebredian Blacks were actually quite close to us. "Can we go see them?" she had asked, mouth hanging open.

I found myself temporarily considering it before I remembered what we were really talking about. "No! It would be dangerous, Kay. And very difficult."

She had looked disappointed, but let me move on to describing some of the other more dangerous animals I remembered from _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ – manticores, chimaeras and the like.

There was something very cathartic about teaching Kay. Her absolute thirst for knowledge could not have been more of a contrast with my school friends' apathy, and their arrogant belief that they knew everything that was important, so that they thought that school was in some way beneath them. It riled me that they had had and wasted the chance to learn so much, when Kay, who might have actually used the opportunity, had never had it offered to her.

Finally, however, she had become distracted by her wish to practice magic again, so I had left her to it, in a way grateful for the quiet, and the chance to rest my voice. I'm not sure I had ever used my voice so much in one day before. Normally at school it had been hard to get a word in edgeways.

"Remus?"

"Yes?" I asked, turning over the bread.

"Where are all your friends now?"

I dropped the slice I was turning into the fire. I swore and grappled for my wand to summon it out of the flames. one corner was on fire; I extinguished it with my wand.

She sat and watched my display without speaking. Then, once I had settled myself, she tried again. "Did James and Lily stay together? Are they still friends with Sirius, and Peter? Why are you here and not with them."

I clenched my jaw. "Things got complicated," I said, understating the issue massively.

"Why?"

"Because of the war."

"What war?"

I turned to her, incredulous. I had spent the morning describing goblin wars and she hadn't even known we had been in the middle of a far more serious battle for the past five years? "Kay, have you never heard of Lord Voldemort?"

She shook her head slowly.

"Oh." I couldn't think what else to say. All I knew was that I couldn't bring myself to explain, not now. "Well, there's been a war. It made things difficult."

"How?"

"Kay, just…" I began to snap, but stopped myself, looking at her hurt expression. "I'm sorry," I said softly, as she bit her lip. "I didn't mean… I just can't talk about it. Okay?"

She stared at me for a very long moment, then nodded, once.

"Thank you." I handed her a piece of toast – the one that hadn't fallen into the fire – piled high with mushrooms, and took the burnt bit for myself. "Someday, I supposed I'll have to tell you about it. But I… not now."

"Okay." There was a pause. "Is the war still going on?"

I scowled into the fire. _Daily Prophet_ headlines flashed before my eyes. _The Boy Who Lived. The Dark Lord's Downfall._

And, just yesterday, _Leading Aurors Tortured in Attempt to Find You-Know-Who._

"I don't know," I admitted heavily. "I think… I think it's mostly over, now."

"Good," she said quietly, and after that we both ate in silence.


	8. 11th December, 1981

Over the next few weeks, I spent almost every waking moment teaching Kay. I have no idea how much she was actually retaining; she listened in raptures to my lectures on wizarding history and magical beasts, but of course I never tested her to see if she remembered any of it.

When it came to actual magic, on the other hand, she seemed to remember everything. Each spell I taught her she would practice obsessively, apparently terrified of forgetting it. I tried to focus on magic that might actually be useful to her; within two weeks she was able to light the fire herself, and I taught her to use her wand as a torch, using _Lumos._ She was also managing adequately at transfiguration, already adept at turning pebbles into buttons and twigs into matches. It was frustrating that I only had what was around me to teach her with; I think she was getting bored of transfiguring foliage, but was hardly ready to progress to trees, and there wasn't much else around to practice on.

However much my waking life may have a new focus, nothing changed in sleep. Sirius came to me every night, ferocious, possessive, all-consuming, and I woke every morning in a fusion of ecstasy and embarrassment. If Kay ever noticed, she never said anything, and after those first few days she never asked questions about Sirius, or the rest of them

All through those weeks, too, I was aware of the issue we had not talked about – it wouldn't be long before the next full moon came around. Aware of a need to be on top of dates, I had found myself crossing off the days on a calendar I had kept in my trunk, lest the time should sneak up on us without our being able to prepare.

When the day arrived, I knew I could ignore the problem no longer. "Kay," I said seriously over breakfast. "What are we going to do about tonight?"

She looked up at me through sleepy eyes. Like me, she was clearly desperate to get back to bed, for the rest we would both need. "What do you mean?"

I sighed. I had been thinking about the matter a lot over the last few days. Yes, before when I had transformed around animals – and by animals I mean Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs – I had not been as aggressive as usual, had ironically retained more of my humanity as they lost theirs. But somehow I didn't think the same logic would apply when I had another werewolf for company, and the encounter the month before had done nothing to relieve me of that fear.

"What if I attack you again?" I asked, getting straight to the point. "Or you attack me? If we fight, if we hurt each other?"

She examined me, head on one side. "Thing is," she said after a moment, "If you weren't here I'd hurt myself, so it don't matter if you hurt me – can't be any worse."

I remembered how sure I had been that I was about to kill the young she-wolf beneath me, and knew that it most certainly could be worse than that. But she wasn't done. "'Sides," she continued, "I don't think I won't want to hurt you, not this time. We're friends."

I brushed aside the fact that she was the first person to label me a friend since school, and went on with what I saw as the more urgent matter. "But you don't know that. We don't know that. We could really hurt each other, Kay."

"Yeah, well," she said, a reckless twinkle in her eye. "I beat you before, didn't I?"

_Hardly,_ I thought, _you just got lucky._ But for some reason I couldn't bring myself to argue further. Actually, I know exactly the reason. That recklessness, that utter disregard for her own safety, and dare I say it that exact expression on her face, reminded me heart-wrenchingly of Sirius.

We finished our food in silence, then both went back to bed. Even Kay realised that today was not a day for lessons.

x-x-x-x-x

_Sirius knelt over me, my legs gripped between his knees, his hands pinning me to the prison cot that had become so familiar. As if he needed to; I would never, could never, have tried to leave._

_His hands were wrapped so tightly around my wrists, holding them up above my head. And they were cold. So very, very cold._

_And then he ran his hands down my arms to my waist, and yet the pressure did not alleviate. Confused, I craned my neck to try to see what was holding me, but I couldn't catch sight of my own hands._

_Sirius was sitting up, his mouth pulling away from mine, and I went to following him. The pressure around my wrists tightened and I found myself unable to move, and understood._

_The tight, cold pressure on my wrists came from a pair of handcuffs. I was chained to the bed. I looked into Sirius' face and saw, not filthy mischief, but a mixture of concern and disgust._

_"No," I told him, breaking my rule of never trying to speak to him. "No. I'm not the criminal here. You are."_

_He just continued to look at me, and I stared at him, and the battle of wills was more intense than anything else I had ever experienced in my dreams of him. I wanted him to laugh, to bend down and kiss me, to prove that the handcuffs were his joke, not a reflection of my criminal conduct, but he didn't. He just glared down at me, his face contorting as he judged me._

For the first time in five years, I awoke to find the sheets dry. My pillow, less so.

I wiped the tears furiously from my eyes, and lay on the bed, my heart thudding. The curtains of Kay's bed were open, and I could see that she wasn't there. _She must be outside_, I thought, thanking Merlin, Godric Gryffindor and anyone else who would listen for my luck, and closed my eyes again.

I knew why I had been in chains. I was terrified, literally terrified, that come the next morning I would awake and find myself a murderer. I would have killed Kay in a fit of bloodlust, because that was how little control I had over myself as a wolf, and yet she didn't seem to believe that I was dangerous.

And yet she _knew,_ damn it, better than anyone, how dangerous I was, because she was dangerous too. But she was smaller and weaker and younger than me and there was no doubt in my mind who was the most at risk.

I cast my mind back over the dream. The handcuffs had not, astoundingly, been the worst of it. The most heart-wrenching thing of all had been the look on Sirius' face.

_What right does that murderer have to judge me?_ I raged in my head, but the answer floated up even before I had finished asking the question. _You still don't believe he's a murderer. You still believe he's the boy you knew at school, the one who would rather die than murder anyone and thought you felt the same._

Except I _had_ felt the same, and the only time anyone had ever come close to being harmed by me, it had been Sirius' fault. _Sirius proved what he was capable of when we were sixteen,_ I reminded myself fiercely. _Other people's lives never meant that much to him. You always thought too highly of him_.

I lay very still. Yes, it was true; Sirius had nearly killed Snape in our fifth year. Well. He had nearly caused me to kill Snape, and that was nearly the same thing. Did that mean that it shouldn't have come as a surprise, when he showed the same callous disregard for our friends' lives that he had Snape's?

_Why don't you believe he could have killed them?_ I scolded myself. _Why do you still defend him in your head, even when you know the truth?_

The door to the tree house opened and Kay came in. "Remus? Are you awake?"

I made myself sit up. "Yeah."

"It's nearly dark. Think we've got about an hour."

"Oh."

"I fried a fish."

"Oh."

"You need to eat something."

"Yeah."

"Are you alright?"

And then, before I could stop myself, I found myself telling her everything. Well. Not quite everything. I tactfully left out the bit about my own feelings for Sirius; she didn't need to know that. But I explained about how Sirius had betrayed James and Lily, how he had murdered Peter and a dozen Muggles, how he was in Azkaban now, and how I couldn't bring myself to believe that my best friend had killed everyone I held dear. I went back further, recounted how Sirius had nearly made me maul Snape to death, the weeks of not speaking to him, the way he had starved himself to prove how sorry he was, how he had sat awake at the foot of my bed every night, trying to make me accept the apology. How I had eventually caved, when his gaunt face and brittle-looking wrists had scared me into thinking that if I didn't do so soon, I'd be a murderer as surely as I would have been if I'd really attacked Snape.

She listened wordlessly, mouth slightly agape. When I was done, she watched me in silence for a few moments, then stood up. "You need to eat, Remus," she told me firmly, and held out her hand.

I took it, and let her lead me outside, still in my pyjamas. She handed me the fish, cold now, and I ate it, not enjoying it but knowing I needed it. We didn't speak.

She was right; the sun was nearly set. We had a matter of minutes, I reflected, as I finished my meal. She seemed to have had the same thought; she had pulled off her jumper, and had dragged her polo shirt up over her head.

I knew that embarrassment was futile, so I followed suit, unbuttoning my pyjama top and pulling off the trousers so that I stood naked before her. She removed her jeans and underwear – she wore no bra, I now noticed, not that she really needed one – and we tried not to look in one another's directions, not to acknowledge that we were both completely exposed. But out of the corner of my eye, I could scarcely help but notice that her body was as criss-crossed with red and white scars as mine.

As we waited, she finally spoke. "I think it's nice."

"What?" I glanced at her, forgetting my vow not to look.

She met my eyes. "That you've got so much faith in your friend that you won't believe he would do it."

I sighed. "Misplaced faith," I said, trying to convince myself more than her. "There's no other possible explanation for what happened."

She shrugged. "You never know."

I shook my head slowly. "But that's the thing. I do know."

She looked as though she was about to say something further, but before she had the chance she was suddenly bent double in excruciating pain. The same burst of agony hit me a moment later, knocking me off my feet.

A few tortuous minutes later, I was up on my feet again, but now there were four of them. Her stench was overpowering; my wolf senses registered the smell of an enemy and without a moment to think, I lunged at her.

She pounced, and we crashed into each other, claws and teeth ripping at anything we could make contact with. We rolled, over and over, scrapping on the ground by the fire, until I ended up on top of her, pinning her down.

We growled into each other's faces, and I swear I was about to strike, when suddenly, she leaned up and licked me on the snout.

I froze. My wolf brain was struggling to find a way around what had just happened. My killer instinct was unsure of how to cope with affection.

As I stood, paralysed, over her, she tried it again. A swift lick, finishing with a small nip on the very end of my snout. I still just gazed at her, as human thoughts began to penetrate my wolfish consciousness.

I couldn't remember why, but I now knew that it was very important that I didn't hurt her. Slowly, not quite able to believe I was doing it, I backed off, and she sprang up, playfully cuffing me with her paw. Unable to stop myself, I swiped at her, claws out, but she batted my paw away, staring me out. Then, suddenly, she bounded away, and I found myself following. It was a pursuit, and yet I wasn't sure what I would do when I caught up with her. I didn't know if I was planning on hurting her or not.

We reached a clearing, and she spun around to face me again. I skidded to a halt in front of her, my animal instincts telling me to strike, and yet something else, something I had no name for or understanding of, holding me back.

Then, never taking her eyes away from mine, she curled up on the ground in front of me, like a dog settling down to sleep.

I reacted instinctively. I curled up next to her, making sure not to lose eye-contact – I think the human part of me, however deeply buried it was, understood that this was key to not losing control – and let her snuggle up against me. After we had lain still for a few minutes, I allowed myself to close my eyes, and found that I was not overwhelmed with an urge to rip out her throat as soon as I could no longer see her eyes.

Lying there like that, a memory stirred. It was a memory that I had long set aside; the memory of curling up with Padfoot in the corner of the Shrieking Shack after a long night as a wolf, waiting for dawn. Those nights I had never fully appreciated, being more animal than human; but the mornings had been different. Waking up as a boy, with Sirius' dog body pressed against mine, had given me irrational yet blissful hope. It had always proved unfounded, and yet those moments of bittersweet happiness had been among my most coveted at school.

With these thoughts floating across my half-conscious mind, I managed something I hadn't achieved since leaving school, and convinced my wolfish self to sleep through the night.


	9. 12th December, 1981

I awoke in the morning with Kay, human as I was, naked as I was, sprawled across my chest. I brushed her hair out of my face and tried to work out how this had happened. Had she found me, passed out, after we'd both reverted to human form? But then I remembered, and marvelled at the truth of it. Somehow, two wolves had managed to keep each other human.

She stirred slightly, and her arm wrapped itself tightly around my waist. I became suddenly distinctly aware of where I was and what this must look like. But I could see no way of moving without waking her, so instead I laid back, waiting for her to wake of her own accord, and preparing myself to face the consequences when they came.

Eventually her eyes flickered open, and she looked sleepily up at me. "Morning."

"Morning," I said softly, waiting for her to wake up properly, realise where we were, and panic. But she didn't. Instead, she leaned up, and gave me a very cautious kiss.

I froze as her lips met mine. She was much slower, more tentative, than the last time she had kissed me, as though she was afraid of something. When I didn't push her away, though, she grew more confident, sitting up slightly to lean over me and deepen the kiss.

I couldn't move. For all that I had dreamed about Sirius' kisses every night since I was sixteen, her fumbled attempt a few weeks before had been the first real kiss of my life, and that had scarcely counted, being so inexpertly delivered. But this felt different, somehow, like something real – I realised with a jolt that she must know, by now, that she didn't have to do this, know that it wasn't some payment I was expecting, and so she must be doing it _because she wanted to._ The thought was ludicrous and yet there it was, and there she was, and finally my lips unfroze and began to move against hers.

After a few moments she pulled back, and I let her, waiting, terrified, for her to speak.

She didn't. She just smiled and nestled against my chest, as if to go back to sleep.

"We should go home," I forced out, before she could doze off. "We'll freeze." It was, after all, the middle of December.

She nodded sleepily, and began to sit up. I stood and helped her up, and fingers entwined, we walked back to the tree house.

As we entered I hesitated. Would she want to share a bed, now? Would I look possessive and creepy if I suggested it? Or cold and callous if I didn't?

As it was, she made the decision for me. She went and sat on my bed, rather than her own, and looked expectantly up at me.

I followed her, and sat down beside her on the bed. She leaned in to kiss me again, and I found myself wrapping my arms around her, pulling her into me. Together we sank down onto the pillow, and I negotiated the covers so that we could both burrow down together in the warmth.

We kissed for several long minutes, and then she pulled away again and laid her head against my chest. I pressed my lips to the top of her head and closed my eyes, feeling her small body curled up in my arms, shivering – thought whether with cold or something else I couldn't have said.

I was vaguely aware that my mind should be racing. There were so many things that should have been bothering me, but I couldn't focus on any of them. I was just too tired.

x-x-x-x-x

_Sirius was fuming, and I didn't have to wonder why._

_He was pacing up and down the cell, throwing furious glares at me as I sat cross-legged on the bed. I waited for him to calm down. If he would just come to me, would just kiss me, he would be able to sense, taste, that he had nothing to worry about; in dreams I would always be his._

_And he had no right to ask me more than that, when it was down to his actions that he would forever be apart from me. First his disinterest, and then his terrible crimes, had come between us, and I had played no part in any of it._

_As though he could hear my thoughts, his head snapped up and he approached menacingly. I stared defiantly up at him, not wanting to take my accusations back, yet also unable to retract my declaration of devotion. I just hoped that the latter would mean enough to him to outweigh the former._

_He struck me across the face._

_I gaped up at him, my head reeling. I couldn't work out what the slap was for. Was it because I had kissed Kay? Or was it because I was blaming him for our failure to make it in waking life? But he didn't know about those accusations. They had been all in my head._

This whole dream is all in your head, you moron,_ I reminded myself exasperatedly. And yet the stinging on my cheek felt utterly real._

I woke with a start, and instinctively, needing the human warmth, wrapped my arms more tightly around the small body encircled in them. I felt Kay stir, and loosened my hold, but then her grip was tightening too, and I felt cool, gentle kisses being spotted across my bare chest. I closed my eyes, hating myself. What was I doing? Why was I doing this to myself? Why was I doing this to her?

Her lips were moving up my neck, until she reached my chin, and then jumped straight to my mouth. I tried very hard not to react. I couldn't quite bring myself to push her off, but perhaps if I failed to react she would get the hint and…

And what? We lived in the same room, for Merlin's sake. How exactly was I envisaging this ending?

Maybe with an acknowledgement that this was all a mistake, induced by left-over wolf hormones?

As it turned out, my body had other ideas. Acting seemingly independently of my brain, which was screaming at me to stop, my arms entwined around her and I shifted onto my back, gentle pulling her on top of me. She settled herself comfortably astride me, her tongue exploring inside my mouth, and I ran my hands up to her shoulder blades, holding her in position, locking her and myself in that foolish embrace.

And then, dear Merlin, I felt that hardening sensation that only my visions of Sirius had ever induced before. Her hands slid down me, encouraging me, and I heard myself give a soft moan.

She withdrew suddenly, her eyes widening. I saw my own fear staring back at me out of her hazel eyes.

"I ain't done this before," she said softly, and I ran my hands down her arms, trying to reassure her. "Neither have I."

She blinked at this, but didn't say anything. Instead, she leaned back, drawing away so that she could inspect me. I saw her biting her lip as she saw the whole of me, but I knew instinctively that it was too late to tell her she didn't have to do this; she had made up her mind.

I gripped her by the elbows. "I think it might be easier if…" I tailed off, and carefully rolled her over so that she was lying beneath me. She gazed up at me, eyes frightened yet determined, and managed a smile.

Before we went any further, I reached for my wand to cast the necessary spells. Of course I had learnt them, even as I doubted that I would ever need them; as Dumbledore had pointed out, I was hardly fit to be a father.

Once it was done, I leaned in and kissed her, and felt her arms encircle my neck, holding on tightly as though afraid to let go. Very carefully, terrified lest I should hurt her, I worked on her with my fingers until I guessed that it would probably be all right to give her what I knew she was really looking for.

She bit her lip as I eased slowly into her, squirming with discomfort. And yet when I tried to stop, she reached her arms around my waist and pulled me closer to her, forbidding any abandonment. So I speckled her face with kisses, hoping that she would know that despite the pain (and isn't it supposed to hurt a girl, the first time?) she was and would always be safe with me. From the way her lips moved hungrily against mine, from the way her whimpers subsided into moans and gasps, and from the sudden tightening around me, I supposed that my reassurances had worked.

I yelped as I finished, right after she did, and fell against her, gasping for breath. I slid over to the side to make sure she could breathe, wrapping my arm around her shoulder as she snuggled up against me. Soon, I knew, we would have to talk, and talk properly; we had hardly said two words to each other since waking up in the forest. But for now, my lids were heavy; hers were already closed. Soon, we would have to talk. Soon. But not yet.

x-x-x-x-x

_Sirius and I sat at opposite ends of the cell, both on the floor, each with our arms wrapped around our knees. He glared at me, ferocity and hurt and disgust etched into every feature, and I gazed back at him, begging him with my eyes to understand, not to judge me, not to hurt me. My silent pleas fell on deaf, uncaring ears._

"Remus?"

My eyes flickered open. Kay was leaning up on one elbow, frowning down at me.

"What's the matter?" I sat up, and she rose with me, keeping her eyes level with mine.

After a long pause, she finally asked me, "Why _do_ you say Sirius' name in your sleep?"

My heart sank. "I…"

"Do you miss him?"

It wasn't the question I had been expecting, but it was an easy one to answer. "Yes."

"But why? Why, when he killed your friends?"

I sighed, falling back onto the pillow. "I… The Sirius I went to school with wouldn't have done that. It's him I miss."

She settled down against my chest, and I was relieved to be free of her piercing stare. "Tell me about him."

And I found myself obeying. Even though I had thought I would never want to talk about Sirius again, I let it all spill out. I told her about his hair and his eyes, his laugh and the deep growling noise he made in the back of his throat when he was angry. I told her about how loyal he was, how fierce when a friend was hurt, and about his wicked sense of humour and the gleam in his eye when he'd thought of a new way to cause trouble.

I told her about his and James' bullying campaign against Snape, about how when we were sixteen he had told Snape how to find me and James had had to save Snape's life. I told her how I didn't speak to him for weeks, how destroyed he had been, how thin and pale he had become, until I'd eventually forgiven him.

I told her about how he had been thrown out of the family home, how he had pretended to be glad but how I used to wake in the night to find him gone, and have to rescue him, pissed as a newt, from the top of the Astronomy Tower, for weeks after the fallout. How I had seen a vulnerability then that most people wouldn't have believed him capable of showing.

I told her about how we had grown apart since school, as we both knew there was a traitor close to Lily and James and he had seemed convinced that it was me. How I had never believed for one moment that it could be him.

She listened wordlessly throughout my monologue, her fingers running over the scars that criss-crossed my chest, and I was very glad that I couldn't see her face, had no idea what she was thinking. Once I had started I couldn't stop, and all of it needed saying, but I was convinced that if she looked up there would be hurt and anger and disgust in her face as she heard the things I wasn't saying. _And I loved him. I loved the stupid, complacent, callous, treacherous bastard._

Eventually I tailed off, my increasingly frantic diatribe over. We lay there in silence, the air full of the echoes of my words and the shadows of the questions that I knew were desperate to spill from her mouth.

In the end she asked just one, but it was the one I had been dreading.

"Remus?"

"Kay."

"Did you… Did you love him?"

I lay still, my heart pounding, trying to decide what I should say to her. The truth would hurt, I was sure, after what we had just done, but a lie would be unforgiveable.

"Yes," I said, after a while.

She didn't lift her head from my chest, and her fingers didn't stop tracing the lines lying over my heart. After a while, she managed, "But he… He didn't love you?"

A shadow passed over me and I shivered inwardly. "No," I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "Well. I never asked him. But I don't think he did, no."

"I'm sorry," she said, in a very small voice, and I was taken aback. I craned my neck to look down at her, and she looked up, with sad, nervous eyes. "Why on earth are you sorry?" I breathed, and she bit her lip.

"I'm sorry he didn't love you back."

I couldn't stop myself. I bent down and kissed her, and she hesitated, surprised, before kissing me back. After a moment I broke away, and gazed seriously into her face. "It doesn't matter," I told her, in a low voice. "Look at what he became. Maybe he could never have loved anyone. Maybe he could have loved me. But I would have preferred to have spent the rest of my life wishing for him than to have helped him betray James and Lily, to have helped him murder Peter."

I was relieved to hear those words come out of my own mouth. In that instant, I knew that they were true, though Merlin knew I had doubted myself enough times since reading of their deaths in the _Prophet._

She looked steadily at me, and then nodded once. "Yeah, I reckon you would of."

I kissed her again, and for the first time I wasn't questioning myself. If I could finally turn my back on Sirius now, maybe I wasn't such a terrible person after all. Maybe I could give her something worth having. After all, neither of us was ever likely to find anyone else.

x-x-x-x-x

_I stood in the middle of Sirius' cell. He was sitting on the bed, cross-legged, staring up at me with baleful eyes. For the first time since I was sixteen, I realised, I had the power here. I could take control, tell him the truth, hurt him if need be._

_And I _needed _to hurt him. I needed him to see that I wasn't going to be dragged along, that I wasn't going to forgive him. Not this time. Snape had been one thing. Lily and James and Peter were quite another, and there could be no mercy now._

_I turned my back on him, and crossed to the door of the cell. Concealing what I was doing from him with my body, I tried the latch, and found it open. I didn't leave yet; instead, knowing that I finally had a way out, I turned to face him._

_"We're done here, Sirius."_

_He continued to stare at me, those damn eyes widening into the pleading look I had never before been able to refuse._

_"Don't give me that," I snarled, anger rising in the pit of my stomach. "You know what you did, and you know, you must have always known, that it might have taken me a while to see it but I will never, ever forgive you for it."_

_He stood, now, and crossed the cell in three strides, reaching out for me. I held out my hands and pushed him forcefully away, causing him to stagger and fall backwards onto the bed._

_I spat on the ground between us. "Don't you dare. Don't you _dare. _I don't want to hear it, Sirius, I don't want to know. I never want to have to think about you again, Sirius. I hope you rot here."_

_And with those words, I reached behind me for the door and pushed it open. As I stepped out, he lunged after me, but I slammed the door in his face. He rattled at the bars, but somehow the door was locked again._

_"Rot," I ordered him once more, and I turned on my heel and marched down the long, dark corridor the cell looked out onto. At the end of it, I could see light, and trees._


	10. 25th December, 1981

**AN: So I'm really, ****_really_**** sorry its taken so long to update. I said it would be at least once a week and I failed miserably... I'm getting towards the end of term at uni, and everything's incredibly manic at the moment. But anyway, here's your update. Oh, and sorry it's a bit Christmassy... Very unseasonal, but that's just how the story came out.**

* * *

Over the next two weeks, I never dreamt of Sirius once. At first, I found the loss unsettling. When, the morning after that first night, I woke, for the first time in five years, not drenched in sweat or tears or other fluids, the sensation of peace and restfulness that I felt almost disturbed me. Kay's soothing breaths as she lay in my arms, the touch of her slim hand on my chest, should have cast me into a state of serenity, and yet I fought it. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, barraging myself with questions – how had I managed it? Why now? Could it last? Would Sirius really stay locked up in that cell forever, both in the waking world and in the confines of my own head?

It certainly seemed so, those two weeks, and I found that once my sleeping consciousness had locked him out, I was able to set all thoughts of him aside, too, when I was awake.

And where did Kay come in all of this? She hadn't replaced Sirius, I never once dreamt of her; but then I didn't need to, as I had her in real life, in a way I had never had, could never have had, Sirius. After three nights cuddled up together in my narrow bed, I helped her to magically extend it, creating a double bed for us to share. Her face screwed up in concentration, and when she had finished, she triumphantly pushed me onto it, climbing on eagerly to celebrate her achievement. After that first time, she grew hungry and wild, and I accepted her passions at first with bemusement, then with enthusiasm. I didn't have words for how I felt for her. Fiercely protective, yes, and proud every time she learnt something new; but those feelings seemed somehow distinct from what became my desperate need for her, her attentions, the ecstasy she could bring to me.

But we were living outside of the world, outside of any social need to categorise, rationalise, label. It was what it was, nothing more and nothing less, but always unquantifiable.

I was still keeping track of the dates on my calendar. We might be outside of the world, but the one constant factor in our lives was and would always be the moon, and it was essential that we know when our time was coming.

Which is why I knew, when we woke up exactly two weeks after that first night, to wish her a merry Christmas.

"Christmas?" she repeated sleepily, blinking up at me. I teasingly nibbled on her nose. "Christmas."

She reached up and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I don't remember last time someone said Merry Christmas to me."

As always when she said something like that, an all-consuming rage swelled inside of me. Of course, if she'd lived in the forest since she was twelve, Christmases would have come and gone and completely passed her by. I found myself gripping onto her very tightly.

"Remus?" Dear Merlin, _she_ sounded concerned about _me._ I screwed my eyes shut and pressed my lips fiercely against her forehead. She lay very still, probably waiting for me to start making sense again.

"Come on," I said, after a while.

"Where?"

"Just get dressed." I let go of her and slid out of bed, reaching for my jeans. She sat up, watching me appraisingly from the bed. "Remus, what're you…"

"Just get dressed!" I realised I was shouting. Her eyes widened, and I hated myself as she rolled from under the covers and scrabbled for her own clothes.

We dressed quickly, and as she pulled on her jumper, I crossed the room to wrap my arms around her. She looked up at me, her little face crumpled in a frown, but she didn't ask a third time what I was up to.

I think she was expecting the jerk as we apparated, and she clutched to my chest as the world zoomed around us for a few moments, before everything steadied and she took a small step away.

I watched as she looked around her, curious and a little nervous, taking everything in. The cobbled street we stood in was heavy with snow, and almost entirely deserted; who would be out and about on Christmas morning? On either side of us, shops lined the street, windows dark, but with little squares of golden light emitting from the flats above. The buildings were adorned with glowing fairies in jars, shimmering glass orbs, and thick bunches of mistletoe.

Hogsmeade. The best Christmases of my life had been spent here, sneaking down from the castle after lunch under the cloak. Madame Rosmerta knew we weren't supposed to be there but she never minded. James and Sirius insisted that this was because she fancied me, though I highly doubted it.

Kay's mouth was hanging open. I gripped her hand and dragged her down the path, letting her absorb the sight. It was a shame none of the shops were open, not that we could have afforded to buy anything, but she pressed her nose against the windows of Honeydukes, gaping at the rows of sweets, the bars of chocolate that Lily had used to buy me, the barrels of treats. Letting go of my hand, she scurried across the road, staring in through the window of Zonko's, the darkened aisles and displays, before darting back over to the book shop next to Honeydukes. I stood in the middle of the street, watching as she explored the village that had been my territory, not so long ago.

Eventually she came back to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. I reciprocated, sensing that she was cold, and pulled her close.

"Where are we?" she asked into my chest.

"Hogsmeade," I told her, and she took a step back, searching my face inquisitively. "Ain't that…"

"Yep." I reached for her hand again and strung her along behind me. I knew where I was taking her, but I wasn't sure I could even explain to myself just why.

I pulled her out of the village and up the winding path to the Shrieking Shack. I hadn't been there in over three years, and I was surprised by how much smaller it looked, now. The windows were still boarded up, the doors bolted, but there was an emptiness about it that there hadn't been before. Of course, before it hadn't been empty, it had been haunted. By me. Now that those ghosts had moved on, there was nothing left here but the shell of what had used to be my refuge, and my prison.

Kay looked up at it, and I could see her confusion. "Remus, what…?"

I sat down on the low wall, and indicated for her to come and join me. She followed obediently, and I wrapped an arm around her shoulder as I explained how Dumbledore had built the Shack for me, how I had spent every full moon there, how I had ripped apart the furniture and convinced the terrified villagers that the place was haunted.

I told her, finally, about the greatest thing my friends had ever done for me; about how they became animagi. I told her about Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, and she listened with a little frown on her face.

"It were Sirius' idea, weren't it?" she said softly, as I finished.

I shrugged, although I knew full well that yes, it had been.

"No wonder you loved him."

"Yeah, well," I said, determined not to dwell on that one ghost that really did haunt the Shack. "Much good it did all of us."

I felt her nuzzling against my jacket, and tightened my hold on her shoulder. "Thing is, this place was hell, but it was where they did something amazing for me." I leaned back so that I could look at her. "There are always people, Kay, who'll do amazing things, even if they know you're… we're…"

"Not really human," she finished, and her eyes drifted from mine, back to the Shack.

I pulled her face back so that she was looking at me again. "No, Kay, not that. We are human. We really are. And some people understand that. James and Peter and… Yes, and Sirius, I guess… They understood. People will. Sometimes."

She forced a smile, and I stared at her, wishing that there was a way to make her see that sometimes, it doesn't matter who or what you are; sometimes, there are people who just don't care. But then she hadn't been as fortunate as me; she had never had a chance to find that out.

"Come on," I said, getting up and taking her hand again. "One more thing I want to show you."

I led her round to the back of the Shack, and pointed. Of course I needn't have – it was impossible to miss.

Kay stood at my side, staring up at Hogwarts Castle. In the grey December light, the glow from the windows was incredibly comforting. I knew that even now, kids would be sitting in their dormitories and common rooms, opening presents, playing games, reading, talking, laughing, waiting for the magic of Hogwarts Christmas dinner. It was unfair that Kay had never had the chance to be one of those children, but she didn't seem to be thinking of that. She was gazing, open-mouthed, aghast by the mere size of it.

"That's where you…?"

"Yep," I interrupted. "That was home." I suspected that this wasn't what she'd been about to say, but it was the truth, the most honest truth there was.

She linked her arm with mine and laid a head on my shoulder. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"Thank you for showing me."

I smiled sadly to myself and dropped a kiss on the top of her head, before glancing at my watch. It was nearly midday. "Come on."

"Where now?" she asked, but I didn't bother to answer, trusting that she would follow.

I led her back down into the village, and crossed the street to the Three Broomsticks. Of course they were open, even when the rest of the village was in shutdown; the whole village would be there for lunch today.

I opened the door, and Kay followed me into the crowded pub, looking round with wide eyes. The place was packed, and not just with witches and wizards. There were goblins, house elves, a vampire, a couple of vela, and I even caught a glimpse of Hagrid, Hogwart's gamekeeper and suspected half-giant. Kay huddled close to me as I pulled her through the masses to a small window table for two.

"Remus!"

We had barely sat down when Rosmerta, her thick dark hair falling loose around her shoulders and a twinkle in her eye. Strange how much can change and yet some things never will. She pulled me up to give me a hug, planted a kiss on my cheek, and stood back, beaming at me. "It's wonderful to see you, Remus darling! I heard no one knew where you'd got to since… Well, you know." She paused slightly, her smile falling a notch, before she pulled it back up again. "Still, glad to see you… I hope you're about to let me feed you up, darling, you look ever so pale…"

"Yes, two Christmas dinners, please, Rosmerta," I said, aware that I was being stiff, but I had never known how to deal with her attentions. I looked pointedly to Kay, and Rosmerta spun around, taking in the other girl. "Oh, hello, dear," she said, though with slightly less warmth than she had addressed to me. "Yes, two dinners… And some butterbeers?"

"Please."

She sashayed off to get out drinks, and Kay leaned over the table to mutter to me. "Who's she?"

"She's worked here for a while," I said vaguely, aware that she was already on her way back over. "We used to spend a _lot_ of time in here…"

"Oh, didn't you just," said Rosmerta, who had overheard, as she slammed our drinks onto the table. "Oh, but darling, I can't believe how…"

I braced myself for the torrent of sympathy that I had so far managed to avoid from anyone; the sadness over James and Lily and Peter's deaths, the shock at Sirius' betrayal. But suddenly, Kay was standing up.

"Piss off," she said to Rosmerta, very clearly. Rosmerta took a small step back, her eyes widening slightly. Then her face broke into a grin. "Jealous little thing, isn't she, your little girlfriend?" she said to me with a wink, and disappeared into the bustle of the pub.

I found myself gaping at Kay. "Kay, you can't just…"

"Well it's obvious you don't wanna talk about it, why's she yapping on about them?" she said hotly. I couldn't answer that. Unfortunately, I was even less able to answer her next question. "_Am_ I your girlfriend?"

"I… um…"

"I mean, it don't matter, obviously. Only she shouldn't assume."

"Well…"

She rolled her eyes, took a sip of butterbeer, and promptly spat it out again. "What is this?"

I couldn't help laughing; of course, she would never have had alcohol before. "Butterbeer," I told her. "Don't you like it?"

She frowned at the bottle. "Why's it taste like that?"

"That's the alcohol."

"Oh." She took another drink. "S'alright," she said, though her nose was still wrinkled.

Fortunately the food arrived at that moment (Rosmerta had sent it with one of the other waitresses, a sulky, dark-eyed girl who I remembered from school), so Kay didn't notice my sniggering.

We ate dinner there in the corner of the Three Broomsticks, making up for all the meals we'd missed recently. Kay had clearly never tried some of the food; parsnips were entirely new to her, as was cranberry sauce. She nearly choked on her first ever Brussels sprout.

I ordered a second round of butterbeers as she tucked into a steaming bowl of Christmas pudding, and we cracked them open jovially. I suppose I ought to have remembered that she had never drank before, but I didn't.

She almost broke her teeth on a bronze knut embedded in her pudding. She pulled it out of her mouth and stared at it, her face knotted in a frown. "Remus?"

"Yes, Kay?"

"How're we gonna pay for this?"

I looked anxiously around the pub. No one seemed to be looking at us. "Are you finished?"

She nodded, so I licked my spoon clean and reached across the table to take her hands. Squeezing them in my own, I disapparated.

As we remerged in the tree house, she fell against me. "Fuck," she grumbled, and I steadied her. "Why am I dizzy?"

"That's the butterbeer," I said, fighting down a smile. "Sorry, I should have warned you…"

She shook her head, frowning. "S'nice."

I caught her as she swayed again, and led her over to our bed. I laid her down on it, and jumped up beside her, leaning down over her to kiss her roughly. She flung her arms around the back of my neck, her legs lifting to wrap around my waist.

I made quick work of her clothes as she rocked urgently against me, lips moving hungrily across my face. "Remus… Remus…"

"Are you okay?" I breathed, my hands moving down to prepare her.

"I thought you said we shouldn't steal?"

I stroked her firmly with my forefinger, nuzzling against her neck. "You needed a proper Christmas." Because yes, stealing was wrong, but wasn't it worse, letting a girl like her grow up away from her family, away from people, away from childhood, away from Christmas? Morality was starting to take on new shades of complexity and I found, as my hands explored inside her, that I no longer cared what other people would think of right and wrong.

She moaned softly. "Oh, Remus…"

As I entered her, she gave a gasp, and her body writhed, rising so that she could kiss me fiercely. "I love you," I thought I heard her murmur, but instead of replying, instead of asking if that was really what she'd said, I just kissed her, again and again and again.


	11. 29th March, 1982

I shan't dwell heavily on the three months that followed. Three full moons came and went; each time it became easier and easier to stay human, so long as Kay was with me. Those nights became inconveniences, rather than torture. I should have preferred to keep my usual form, and not have to undergo the exhaustion in the days before and after, but I rarely hurt myself anymore, no more than I ever had with Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.

Kay learned more and more with very day. She was a tenacious student, eager to remember and practise every spell I threw at her, and still drinking in stories of witch hunts and giant wars, still delighted by the thought of centaur herds roaming the Scottish forests, still reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood every night before we went to bed.

I was never sure whether she had truly muttered the words 'I love you' at Christmas. She never mentioned it again, nor was I inclined to bring up the subject.

The truth was that I had no idea what I would say if the matter ever arose. I remained fiercely protective of Kay, would have sooner bitten someone than let them say one harsh word to her. I was proud beyond belief every time she mastered a new spell, and that same rage would always surge in the pit of my stomach whenever she mentioned her mistreatment as a child. And I desired her, that much I did know. I needed her hunger.

The dreams of Sirius did not return. I was glad.

But did all that amount to love?

Having only ever experienced an unhealthy obsession masquerading as love, I couldn't identify what I was feeling, and yet 'love' did not seem the right word for it. I had never cared for anyone more, save perhaps Sirius, but I shirked whenever I considered that possibility.

Fortunately, I never had to face the question. She didn't seem to need to find the right word for what we had any more than I did. She had said herself in the Three Broomsticks that it didn't matter.

We were lying in bed one afternoon in March (I'll be honest, we would sometimes spend whole days in bed – when you live along in the middle of a forest with nothing else to do, you can slip into such habits), her fingers playing across my bare chest, when she suddenly said something I wasn't expecting. "It were ten years ago today."

I hesitated, suspecting I knew what she meant. "Since you were bitten?"

"Hmm." I glanced down and saw that her brow was furrowed as she traced the line of one of my oldest scars.

I wasn't really sure what to say. Was I supposed to ask her for the story? I wasn't sure if she would want to tell me. Or if I would want to hear it.

"It were my uncle."

I stiffened in surprise, and twisted to look at her properly. She looked up, her eyes wide. "Uncle Lou."

"Did… Did your parents know he was…"

"No. No one did."

I lay very still and switched my gaze to the ceiling. I could not imagine how any adult werewolf would put a child in danger like that; much less his own niece.

"Mum and Dad never spoke to him again."

"I'm not surprised!" I snarled. "I'd have cursed him into oblivion the moment he transformed back again."

"They were so upset."

"So upset that they locked you in the cellar," I growled, my hand unconsciously tightening its grip on her shoulder.

"They would come down and see me lots, when it weren't near full moon."

I sat up at this, staring down at her in horror. "Wait. I thought you meant they just locked you down there at full moon. You actually had to _stay_ there?"

She shrugged, gazing balefully up at me. "My little brothers was terrified. I couldn't of gone up, they'd of been so scared."

"For twenty-nine days in thirty you'd have been a normal little girl! How could your brothers have been scared?"

She shrugged. "They heard me in the cellar, every month. Mum always said they'd cry all night."

"How old were they?"

"When I was bit? Five and three."

I let my fingers swirl in circular motions over her shoulder. I could understand that the two little boys must have been terrified, but Kay had been hardly older than they were; there was no way her parents could have been justified in their treatment of her. "They could still have let you out when it wasn't full moon."

She shrugged again. "But they couldn't let me mix with real people."

I swore, and loudly. "You _are_ a real person, Kay. We both are."

I felt her roll over so that she was lying on her side, nestled into my shoulder. I wrapped my arm more tightly around her and let her lie, quiet and still, for as long as she needed. It occurred to me that perhaps pointing out, frequently and vehemently, how badly she had been treated probably wasn't helping – but how was I supposed to listen to her tales and not get angry? We hadn't even reached the bit in the story when she was twelve and had to go live on her own in a tent in the woods yet.

"So how did it…" I pressed gently after a while. Somehow I sensed that she needed to carry on talking about it. Probably she had never been able to share thiswith anyone else.

"It was my birthday…."

I frowned. "Wait. So today is…"

"Yeah." She rubbed her eyes wearily. "Uncle Lou – the whole family, really – were there for the party."

I was glad that she couldn't see my face. I knew it would be filled with horror and anger and pity, none of these things she liked to know that I felt. "So you're eighteen today?"

"I guess."

I hesitated. My own birthday, my twenty-second, had passed a mere nineteen days previously, but I hadn't said anything. Partly because it had been only two days after full moon and I hadn't really felt like thinking about it, and partly because it just hadn't seemed important.

Four years. I was four years older than Kay. I had known that, of course, and I won't pretend it hadn't made me uneasy. Especially when she was so young. Seventeen, when we met. Of course, in the wizarding world, that made her an adult; but she didn't seem like one, sometimes. She was so small, and despite her hardened attitude to life she was really very innocent. She didn't know enough about the world to make her afraid of it; she probably thought that the worst thing out there was the two of us and the rest of our kind.

And yet there was something heart-wrenching about the fact that today, she wasn't thinking about the fact that it was her birthday; she was thinking about the fact that it was the anniversary of the day when hell had begun for her.

And, just like I had at Christmas, I knew what I had to do. "Wait here," I told her, swinging my legs out of bed. She sat up, clearly confused, but I scrabbled for my clothes, dressing hurriedly as she watched. When ready, I turned to her, where she sat still gaping on the bed. "I won't be long," I told her, and disapparated.

I emerged once again in Hogsmeade. I was just outside the Three Broomsticks; catching sight of Rosmerta's profile through the window, I ducked, conscious that I, ahem, owed her money. I hurried away, trying not to look too furtive less my fellow witches and wizards in the street should get suspicious, and darted into Honeydukes.

It being a Monday, the shop was relatively quiet; no students from Hogwarts were around, of course, so there was just a pair of very young witches ogling a barrel of exploding bonbons, as the sweets occasionally burst in a flash of no-heat sparks. There was no shop assistant in sight, but I could hear someone whistling to themselves from the open door into the cellar.

I made my way to the back of the shop, where there was a small selection of cakes. Even muggles can do remarkable things with icing; add magic, and you get something amazing. Some changed colour as I watched, some had changing messages scrawled across them in icing, and one was humming 'Happy Birthday' quietly to itself. After some deliberation, I selected one and looked anxiously to the cellar.

Whoever was in there had not yet emerged. A little bell trilled and I jumped, spinning round to realise that the little girls were leaving the shop. I was alone.

Telling myself that it was all in a good cause, I disapparated.

My reappearance made Kay jump. She had got out of bed and dressed, her hair pulled up into a rough ponytail. "Where'd you go?"

Her eyes shifted to the cake in my hands, and she frowned. "Remus…"

"Hush," I told her, and set the cake down on the seat of the chair in the corner. I found my wand and conjured up some candles, which floated around the cake before I lit them with a flick of my wand. Kay watched the magic, spellbound.

I held out an arm and she came to me, standing close beside me as I wrapped an arm around her. "Happy birthday, Kay," I murmured, and pressed my lips gently to the top of her head.

She hugged me back fiercely. "Remus, I don't know what to…"

"Blow out the candles and make I wish," I told her, a small smile playing about my lips, and she looked up to return the smile before turning to obey. Of course I didn't ask what she wished for; not that there is much place in our world for such silly muggle traditions, but the rule, I believe, is that a wish shared will never come true.

A couple of hours later we were lying in bed again, our clothes forming untidy piles on the floor. We hadn't even started to eat the cake, but I couldn't yet be bothered to get out of bed and cut it up.

"You never told me your story," she said faintly, just as I was steeling myself to get up.

"What?" I knew what she meant, of course, but the question had surprised me (perhaps it shouldn't have done), and I couldn't decide whether I wanted to answer it or not.

"I told you mine," she said quietly, and there was no arguing with the logic. So slowly, reluctantly, I began to tell her.

I described how, in the summer when I was six, my parents had taken me to the Lake District. Mum was a muggle-born, used to walking holidays in sleepy villages and cosy cottages, so off we had gone. One night, we had been returning home from a particularly long walk, made all the longer because we had got lost. That was why it was so late; the sun was just disappearing over the horizon when we saw him.

A huge man stood in the middle of the dirt track we were stumbling along. Fenrir Greyback is truly massive – well over six foot, and strongly built – and to me, a mere six years old, he looked like a giant. I felt my mum's hand on my shoulder and saw my dad reach for his wand.

"Who are you?" my dad barked, and I was surprised that my usually gentle father should be so aggressive. But then I was scared, indescribably and inexplicably scared of this stranger, and I was glad to have him there to protect me and my mum.

The man didn't say anything. He just sneered at us, his animal face contorting in a kind of dark pleasure.

I was aware of my dad pulling Mum and me behind him, but it was too late, and utterly hopeless. As the sun finally disappeared the stranger made an odd guttural noise, the like of which I had never heard before.

In my head there was a flash of light, though I must have imagined that because where could it have come from? Suddenly I was watching, horror-struck and terrified, as the strange man bent double in pain, making noises I could never have imagined a human being making.

Mum swept me up instantly and Dad shielded us both with his body, summoning a powerful shield charm with his wand. I started to cry as the man fell onto all fours – but he wasn't a man anymore.

The werewolf lunged at us, and Dad's shield charm wavered and vanished. He backed closer to me and Mum, trying to stay between us and the wolf, but the beast knocked him aside easily with a clawed paw, and leapt straight at me.

Everything else is something of a blur. I remember being knocked out of Mum's arms, and then nothing, just blackness and pain.

I tailed off there, and Kay sat up, leaning over me to look at me properly. I could see pain in her eyes, but something else, something I recognised from my own feelings for her – companionship. Validation. Relief that we were not alone.

Never before had I been so grateful for the taste of her mouth against mine. We were each all the other had, all the other could ever have, and though that though should have bittersweet, a reminder of how all the world shunned us, all I could feel was blissful happiness that we had, at least, found each other.

* * *

**AN: I feel like this is getting a little fluffy... Never fear, normal service shall be resumed soon ;)**


	12. 5th June, 1982

Two full moons later, the day before the next, I was awoken by Kay's distressed shout. "Remus!"

I jerked upright, staring around me. She wasn't in bed with me, not in the tree house at all; the shout had come from outside. I grabbed my jeans and pulled them on as I headed for the door, almost tripping over in my haste to dress and walk at the same time.

Kay was standing between me and the fire, her position defensive and her wand raised. I looked to where it was pointed and saw a figure standing among the shadows, staring at us.

He was too far away to make out his face. All that I could see clearly was his outline, immense and imposing, a cloak too heavy for the June weather falling from his broad shoulders to the ground.

I couldn't see his face, but I would recognise that stature anywhere.

I realised with a jolt that I had left my wand inside.

"Give me your wand, Kay."

"What?"

"Give it to me, and go get mine from inside." There was no sense in her, of the two of us, being the one who was armed. Nothing I had taught her could go any way to preparing her for this.

I think she could tell from the urgency of my muttering that this was not a time to argue. She slipped her wand into my outstretched hand and disappeared.

Feeling guilty already, and yet certain that I was doing the right thing, I pointed her wand behind me. "Colloportus."

There was a sickening squelching noise as the door sealed itself shut, locking Kay inside the tree house. But I had felt a strain as I cast the spell that was not just down to my own misgivings; Kay's wand clearly did not appreciate being used against its owner. I hoped that it would not let me down if it came to a duel.

I had not taken my eyes off Fenrir Greyback since the moment I caught sight of him. He was walking lazily towards me, both hands concealed beneath his cloak. I assumed that one of them would be clutching his wand, and readied myself for an attack.

"Remus."

He had entered the clearing and stood on the other side of the fire, facing me.

"What do you want, Greyback?" There was no use pretending to be polite. We had had this conversation before, countless times.

"It's been a long time."

"How did you know I was here?"

"I heard rumours." He shrugged off his cloak, and it cascaded to the floor around him. "They said you disappeared after Halllowe'en. But then Rosmerta swore that you came into her pub at Christmas. And do you know what else she said, Remus?" He took a step towards me and my grip on Kay's wand tightened. "She said you didn't pay for your meal."

I didn't reply. I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew where he was going with this, but I wasn't going to lead him there.

"And then, a couple of months ago, Milos Samec, do you remember him? Another one of my creations." Greyback grinned broadly, and I shuddered. "He spotted you in Hogsmeade. I knew you must be somewhere nearby, Remus. But not too close, not you. Not the good little wolf boy. Somewhere far enough away that you'd be sure you wouldn't hurt anyone." He paused, and surveyed the tree into which Kay had just disappeared. "But then perhaps I was wrong. Stealing. Making yourself a little girlfriend." I felt bile rise up in my throat and I gave a grunt of protest. "I didn't _make_ her, Greyback. She was already one of… had already been bitten." For a moment, I had almost said 'one of us,' but I could not bring myself to count Greyback and myself in a class together.

Greyback sneered. "Trust you, Remus. Anyone else would have found someone they desired and left her with no choice but to accept them. You were charitable enough to find one who already had no choice."

My hand raised almost of its own accord. "She had every choice, Greyback."

"Did she?" Ignoring the raised wand the huge man began to walk around the fire, approaching me. Never taking Kay's wand off him, I matched his pace, ensuring that we always stayed on opposite sides of the circle, the struggling fire burning feebly between us.

I chose not to answer his question. In all honesty I couldn't have said what choices, if any, had been left open for Kay, but I was at least sure that none had been closed off or forced upon her by me.

He chuckled softly. "I see."

We were still stepping slowly around the fire. Greyback's hands were thrust casually into his pockets, but I was still convinced that his wand would be clutched in one. "Thing is, Remus, I still haven't given up," he said, almost conversationally.

"I don't see why you're so determined to get to me. I thought I'd made my position quite clear."

"Ah, but Remus, you're the one that got away. All my other creations are so happy to flock around me…"

"Because you conditioned them to think it was their only option."

"And this is an option, is it?" he spat, his mask of composure suddenly sliding for a second. "Squatting in a forest because human kind shut you out?"

Again I had no words with which to respond.

"And forcing this poor young girl to think that all she can do is _accept_ being an outcast. Why not let her _embrace_ it, Remus? Why not let her, let yourself, join me and take _advantage_ of your new powers?"

"_This is not power._" The fury in my voice own frightened me, but Greyback only laughed. "But it is, Remus. It is strength, and it is fear. And those will give you power over anyone."

"Leave." I was pleased to see that the wand in my hand was still steady, though my nerve, less so. "Leave here, now."

He smiled nastily. "I know where you are, now, Remus. You and the little bitch. Don't go thinking that I won't get you both, one day." As he spoke, I realised that we had spun round so that he was directly in front of the door to the tree house."

"Leave her out of this!" I commanded, telling myself that I would do anything, kill him if need be, but my voice cracked and he laughed openly. Pointing his wand behind him, he bellowed, "Alohamora!"

As the door fell open and a raging Kay burst out, I opened my mouth to shout a curse, lest Greyback spin round and attack her, but instead, and unexpectedly, the wolf disapparated. Kay stumbled into the clearing, my wand clenched in her fist, glaring furiously at me. "How _dare_ you!"

"Kay!" I lowered her wand instantly. She was still pointing mine directly into my face, but I knew there was little she would be able to do with it. I had never taught her any dark magic, and besides, she was not powerful enough to convince my own wand to work against me.

"Who was he?"

"Fenrir Greyback." There was no use beating about the bush.

"Oh." She looked surprised and, oddly, relieved. She walked around the fire towards me and tossed my wand back to me. I caught it left-handed and passed hers back to her. "I thought it might of been Sirius."

"What?" I gaped at her.

"Well. You looked all tense to see him and he looked dodgy. You never said what he looked like, I just thought he must of been dodgy looking."

I couldn't help but laugh slightly. "But Kay, you know Sirius is in prison."

"He might of escaped."

I shook my head. "Not from Azkaban, Kay. It's impossible."

"And that's good, right?"

"Yes," I said, hardening my voice and my heart.

"Good."

I found myself giving her a bemused look. I saw her notice, but she didn't say anything about it. Instead, she asked, "Why were he here?"

"He was looking for me."

"Why?"

I sighed, and indicated for her to sit down. She settled onto the log by the fire, and I joined her, instinctively intertwining my fingers with hers. "Kay, Fenrir Greyback is… he's a monster."

"Well, yeah." She sounded unimpressed by my opening. He's a werewolf."

"That doesn't make him a monster, Kay!" I yelped in frustration. "Werewolves aren't monsters! _We're _not monsters, but _he_ is."

"Yeah? How come?" I could tell that, as always, she was unconvinced by my insistence that we were people like anyone else, but I hadn't the energy to pursue that point, much as it upset and angered me. "He deliberately tries to bite people, Kay."

"Deliberately? How?"

"He makes sure he's surrounded by people before he transforms. Especially children."

"_Children?_" I could tell that she was thinking of her brothers.

"Yeah. Get them young, he says."

"But _why_?"

"Because Fenrir Greyback hates normal wizards. He wants to create a werewolf army to take over."

"Why?"

I sighed. "I suppose because wizards have never been very good at treating werewolves as equals. Lots of our kind are very resentful, Kay."

"Was that what he meant when he said I had no choice but you?"

I winced. "You could hear?"

"Yeah." She turned to look balefully up at me. "You're the only person who's ever going to be nice to me again, ain't you, Remus?"

I pulled her close. "No, Kay, don't assume that. Don't believe that. There are lots and lots of good people out there."

"Like your friends?"

"Exactly."

"Your friends who are all dead, or murderers?"

"I… well…" I couldn't think what else to say. Who, in truth, would ever treat Kay with the kindness she deserved, when even her own parents hadn't managed it?

Fortunately, she didn't seem to need reassurance. "Good thing I got you then, innit?"

I tightened my hold around her waist. "Yes. Yes, it is."

She paused for a long moment. Then: "Do you think Greyback ever had someone to be nice to him?"

I groaned. "I don't know, Kay. Maybe he didn't."

"So it's not his fault."

I hesitated for a long moment. "Kay, every werewolf gets a certain amount of abuse in their lives. Most of us still resist the urge to bite small children."

"That's because you're a good person."

I gave a hollow laugh. "I think it takes more than not wanting to turn kids into werewolves to make you a good person, Kay."

"Yeah. But look at you. You fell in love with a man who killed your best friend and you're still being nice to people. Then there's him, and who knows what's happened to him but in the end he's trying to kill kiddies. I don't think anything could ever happen what would make you do that."

"Well, I'd very much like to think not."

"Exactly. Good person."

I found myself smiling. "Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, Kay."

"Remus?"

"Yes, Kay?"

"Why did he say he'd get us _both_, one day?"

I bit my lip. "He wants all werewolves for his army, Kay. That includes you."

"Oh." She seemed to think about this for a long time. "Well, I won't never join him."

I didn't bother to correct the double negative. "I know you never would, Kay."

We sat together watching the fire flicker until at last it died out. I think Kay dozed off, but I found myself staring into the ashes, my head spinning.

Greyback knew where I was. Where we were. I knew that he would be back, one day. Probably not soon; he would wait, give me time to feel more and more desperate and disillusioned with the rest of the wizarding world. My recent behaviour had clearly given him hope that I would turn my back on them one day. Cutting myself out of society. Stealing. Hiding from the few people I had left who I could call a friend or ally, from the Order, from Dumbledore.

I looked at Kay's form slumped against me. Someday we would have to face the rest of the world again, I knew. I think I had always known it. Someday we would have to return to people before we became more wolf than human and Greyback had us in his clutches.

_Still,_ I told myself, as my eyes roamed over the crumpled heap that I recognised as Greyback's cloak, left behind. _Not yet. Not just yet._

* * *

**AN: I'm off to London tonight and won't be taking my laptop, so I'm not going to be able to write anything until I get back home on Friday. Which means the next update won't be until the weekend. Sorry :( See you all in a week!**


	13. 31st October, 1982

**AN: Sorry it's taken me even longer than expected to post; I'll try to get the next chapter up quickly to make up for it. This weekend was much more hectic than I thought it was going to be.**

**Also, a quick health warning: the highly squeamish/dedicated vegetarians might be best off skipping the paragraphs marked ***. I don't think it's particularly bad, but better safe than sorry so thought I'd just mention it.**

* * *

It just so happened that the first anniversary of James and Lily's deaths fell the day before a full moon. Such days were always difficult ones for Kay and I, as our tempers grew shorter as the full moon drew nearer. That month was particularly unpleasant, though perhaps not for the reasons I might have foreseen.

I awoke surprisingly early in the morning, and rose quickly and quietly. Leaving Kay still snoring in the bed we continued to share, I snuck outside to build up the fire, hoping to be left alone with my thoughts.

One year ago today, Sirius Black had destroyed everything that was good in my life, himself included, in just a few short hours. For one year, James, Lily and Peter had all been dead. For one year, Harry had been living with the Muggles Lily had always spoken of with such miserable, wretched hatred. And for one year, Sirius Black had been ensconced in Azkaban, shut out of my life – and for eleven months, shut almost always out of my thoughts.

It was inevitable, though, that he should be on my mind today. Him and all the rest of them.

I don't know how long I sat there, staring absently into the flames, before Kay came outside. She had thrown on one of my shirts, ludicrously oversized on her, skinny legs protruding from it.

"Remus?"

"Kay." I wanted to tell her to leave me alone, but I knew that wouldn't be fair.

"Are you all right?"

I realised with a start that although I had told her the story, I had never given her dates. "It was a year ago today," I heard myself mumble.

Her brow furrowed as she worked it out. Then the confusion cleared and her eyes widened. "A year ago that Sirius…"

"Yes," I snapped, but the irritation was more with myself than her. How skewed had my telling of the story been, that today in her mind was the anniversary, not of the deaths of the only people who had ever cared about me, but of the betrayal by the one person who had cared the least?

And what made me angriest of all, of course, was the fact that that was exactly how I was viewing it. It was not James' face, not Lily's, not Peter's, that appeared before me when I closed my eyes. Once again, after a year of forgetting, Sirius' image swam through my thoughts, his barked laugh ringing in my ears.

I told myself that it wasn't because I cared more for Sirius than for the others. Their deaths, while tragic, were at least understandable. I missed them all terribly, but I had no unfinished business with any of them.

Where Sirius was concerned, however, so many questions were left unanswered, so many things unsaid, unexplained, unforgiven. In other words, his face taunted me now because there was so much of what he did that I would never, could never, understand.

"I'm sorry." I had almost forgotten that she was still there, but her quiet voice, and the motion as she sat down beside me, brought me firmly back to the present. Without a word I held out an open hand, and she took it. I squeezed hard, too hard, perhaps – I must have been hurting her – but she did not complain, and knew not to speak.

I wanted to explain to her that the regret I felt for what had happened one year previously was not regret for how my life was now. In truth I was happier with her – or at least, more content – than I had ever been in London, living off James' charity. In those wild Scottish woods I had found something, in Kay, which I knew I was fortunate to have found. Still I had not addressed the question of whether it could be called love, but it was security, and companionship, and loyalty, and all sorts of things that may or may not together have amounted to that elusive concept. But whatever my present may have bought to me, the fact remained that my best friends were now all gone, and I missed them bitterly.

I couldn't find a way to say any of this, but I think she understood it. She laid her head against my shoulder, and I rested mine on top of hers, and we stayed very still for a very long time.

x-x-x-x-x

That was how Greyback found us.

I think I must have dozed off, as he had to cough to get my attention. This stirred both of us, and Kay gripped my arm painfully tightly. I knew she had recognised him.

My wand was in the back pocket of my jeans, but Kay, shivering in my shirt, was unarmed. Instinctively, I found myself shifting slightly so that my body was between Kay and Greyback. I am unsure what I was expecting from him - attacking us would have been senseless, since we were already werewolves and doing us greater harm would prevent rather than encourage us from joining his cause - but I would never trust him, would never cease to feel anxious in his presence, for Kay's sake if not for my own.

It took me too long to notice that Greyback was not alone. Samec, a werewolf I had met once or twice before, always tailing Greyback, was with him. He was stood on our other side, so that while I protected Kay from Greyback, she was totally exposed to his companion.

"Relax, Remus," said Greyback impatiently. "Neither of us means either of you any harm."

Samec moved forwards towards the fire, an amused sneer forming as he saw how mine and Kay's eyes followed his progress. He sat himself down on the floor, cross-legged, and began rummaging in his backpack. After a while, he found what he had been looking for; the body of a rabbit, legs tied together with string.

***As Kay and I watched, he lifted his wand and, with a wordless slashing motion, cut off the head, tail and feet. They fell to the floor, where he left them, the rabbit's open eyes surveying me beadily.

***Again without uttering the incantation aloud, he began to skin the creature. I felt bile rise in my throat as that grey-brown fur peeled away from the raw, red flesh beneath. Kay, who I knew must have done this herself on occasion, and without the aid of magic at that, nevertheless seemed horrified by what she was seeing. I glanced up at Greyback and saw that he was watching us, his tiny dark eyes gleaming unpleasantly at our discomfort. The scraps of skin fell again around Samec's feet, scattered on the floor around the rabbit's head.

***With a casual wave of his wand, Samec summoned a skewer out of the air and, without magic this time, ran what was left of the creature through with it. Conjuring sticks to support the skewer, he positioned the rabbit over the fire, causing it to magically rotate slowly as the flames flickered below it. The rabbit's head still lay on the floor, its eyes seemingly fixed on its own spinning body.

All the while, I was struggling against a rising wave of nausea. I was not naïve – I had always known what must be done to an animal to create meat – but Samec was deliberately making a display of the process to unsettle us, and it was working. The callousness with which he stripped and hacked at that innocent creature, I knew, reflected a deeply bloodthirsty nature, outweighed only by that of his companion.

I was in no doubt that Greyback would happily have beheaded and cooked either one of myself and Kay, for no purpose other than to satiate his psychotic desire for blood, if he had not had reasons to want to keep us alive.

"So." When Greyback spoke, his sunken eyes were fixed not on me but on Kay. "I don't think we've ever been introduced."

Kay looked to me for direction, and I nodded very slightly. I could not fight them off single-handedly, and so we would have to play along, at least for the time being. "Kay," she muttered, "Kay Macmillan."

I tried not to let Greyback see my surprise. I had never asked Kay her surname, had never realised that her father was a Macmillan, one of the oldest wizarding families. Alice Macmillan had been in my year at school – I racked my brains for any conversations I may have had with her about her family. Had Kay's father been Alice's cousin, perhaps? I was sure Alice had been an only child. And then I remembered – how could I forgotten? – that Alice Macmillan had married Frank Longbottom, and had been tortured to the point of insanity only a few weeks after James and Lily were killed.

All this crossed my mind in a split second, and I barely had time to wonder whether Kay, locked in a cellar for most of her life, had any idea what had become of her wider family, for Greyback was barking, "Lou Macmillan's daughter?"

"Niece. It was him what bit me, though."

This fact seemed to give Greyback a huge amount of pleasure. "Keeping it in the family, eh? I hadn't realised Lou had taken our lessons so closely to heart…"

"What do you mean?" I asked sharply, before Kay could.

Samec gave a cackle, as Greyback turned his eyes to me. "My dear Remus, Lou Macmillan has been committed to our cause for some four years – but still, his own niece – I'm impressed."

"Kay was bitten more than ten years ago," I told Greyback viciously. "Her uncle wasn't acting on your orders then, if he ever has been. It was an accident." I squeezed her hand tightly as I said the last words, trying to reinforce them with my mind. _An accident,_ I told her, firmly and silently. _No one did this to you on purpose._

Greyback shrugged. "No matter. I suppose it would have been disappointing to think he could bite her but not then bring her up to know our ways…"

"Your ways are not _our ways,_ Greyback," I spat furiously. "You do not speak for all our kind."

Samec interjected. "More than you might think, Remus, more than you might think." He leaned forward and lifted the rabbit from the fire – the process must have been speeded up magically, for it looked and smelt cooked, though it had been spinning only for a matter of minutes. "Now, won't you join us for lunch?"

Again I sensed Kay looking at me, awaiting instructions. "Go and fetch plates from inside," I instructed her quickly, hoping that she would have the sense, whilst in there, to find her wand. She rose at once, which reassured me that she had understood, since if she had thought I was merely sending her on errands she would surely have shot me a resentful look.

Greyback and Samec both watched her retreat, Greyback eyeing her exposed legs appreciatively. Once she had disappeared, Greyback turned to me. "You know, Remus, when I called her your girlfriend on my last visit I was just being flippant – I had no idea you actually _are_ bedding the little bitch. Not that I blame you."

The wave of fury that rose up from the pit of my stomach was unmatched by any that I had felt thus far. "Don't talk about her like that," I snarled, but our argument was cut short as Kay re-emerged, clutching the four plates that she had triumphantly transfigured out of slabs of tree bark a few weeks previously, and, I was relieved to see, with her wand tucked into my shirt pocket.

If Greyback and Samec noticed the wand, they did not show it. Samec held out a hand and Kay obediently scurried to pass them over. He took them from her wordlessly, and with his wand began hacking off portions of meat for all of us.

I had worried, knowing Greyback's tastes as I did, that the rabbit would be unpalatably rare, but as I sniffed suspiciously at it, I was satisfied that it would be at the very least stomachable. Greyback lifted his piece in his bare hand and tore ruthlessly at it with his teeth, reminding me of a dog that has been starved for days. Samec followed suit, acting barely any more decently as he ripped strips of meat from the slab and thrust them savagely into his mouth. Kay, like me, was just staring at her food, showing no signs of actually wanting to eat.

The source of her disquiet became apparent very quickly, and it came as no surprise to me. "My uncle joined you?"

I saw Greyback and Samec share a triumphant glance. "He did, Pretty," Greyback told her, and his empty flattery unsettled me far more than his insults had done. There was something unpleasant in the words, something that made me want to tell Kay to go inside and never let Greyback look at her again with that cold, hungry expression…

"Does he bite kids on purpose now?" If Kay was afraid of the expression on Greyback's face, she didn't show it.

A broad grin spread across Greyback's face, and he exchanged another look with Samec. "He does, Princess. Three to date, I believe, is that right, Milos?"

Samec nodded, meat juices spilling out of his half-open mouth and trickling down his chin. "That sounds right to me, Fenrir."

"Oh." Kay frowned into her plate for a moment, then, quite deliberately, let it slide from her lap, her untouched meat falling to the ground beside the rabbit's severed head. "I'd of thought better of him than that."

My breath caught in my throat, as I searched Greyback's face, waiting for his reaction. He looked over at Samec and I glanced at the other werewolf too, still not daring to breath.

Then, simultaneously they both started to laugh.

"You've taught this one well, Remus," said Greyback, as Samec's cold, chilling cackle continued to reverberate around the clearing. "Very well indeed."

"But don't think, Lovely, that everything he taught you was right," Samec said, staring intently at Kay, who did not look up, her eyes fixed upon the rabbit's head as though she had only just registered that it was there.

"Or," finished Greyback, "That we won't be back to tell you the truth one day." With that he rose. "Come, Samec."

Samec scrambled to his feet, and with one last, lingering look back at Kay, followed his master as the larger werewolf strode out of the clearing.

Kay and I sat, shell-shocked, for several long, painful minutes. Then, at last, she jerked back to her senses, and knelt on the ground, hurrying to incinerate all the remaining traces of the rabbit's carcass. I helped her, wordlessly tipping my own untouched portion on top of the heap. We did not go back inside until the wretched creature's flesh was burnt to cinders, and I had promptly vanished the skeleton that fell from the skewer into the flames.


	14. 24th December, 1982

Kay and I never spoke of this second visit from Greyback. I am sure that the news of her uncle disturbed her, but I always thought that it should be up to her to bring the subject up; not that there was much I could have said to reassure her if she had. As for Greyback and Samec's threat that they would return, I think we both realised that we would one day have to leave the forest, if only to avoid them. I had no doubt that even if we did, they would track us down eventually, but if I could put off that inevitable meeting, I would.

Even so, we never discussed plans to leave, or ideas about where we could go once we had left. In fact, we never needed to; the question was decided for us on Christmas Eve, just under two months after that Hallowe'en visit.

I was, unusually, alone. Kay had gone out to collect some mushrooms, and I was gutting a fish I had caught earlier at the loch. I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around me; fourteen months in that place with only Kay for company had lulled me into a (perhaps misplaced) sense of security. Apart from Greyback's two visits, we had neither seen nor heard anyone or anything that could have been a threat to us for as long as we were living in the tree house.

I was therefore startled to hear Albus Dumbledore's voice coming from somewhere to my left. "Merry Christmas, Remus Lupin."

The fish fell from my limp hands to the ground with a soft flump, and the knife clattered down after it. I looked up to see a silvery white bird sitting on a low tree branch, watching me.

I knew a Patronus when I saw one; but I had never heard one speak before. This was new magic, and it frightened me, but the sound of Dumbledore's voice reassured me a little. Even so, I could do no more than sit, frozen, staring at the shining phoenix and waiting – though for what I could not have said.

The Patronus seemed to be allowing me a moment to gather myself, before it went on. "Albus Dumbledore requests your presence at dinner tonight. 7pm in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

And with that, the phoenix dissolved, leaving me staring dumbly at an unoccupied branch.

"Remus?"

I spun around to see that Kay had emerged, holding a basket of mushrooms (I was too stunned even to feel proud that she must have transfigured that basket out of something) and staring fixedly at the same branch I had just torn my eyes away from. "What were that thing?"

"A Patronus," I told her softly. "Albus Dumbledore's Patronus."

"Dumbledore?" she said, stepping out of the shadows and crossing over to the fire. She set down the mushrooms and turned to me, frowning. "Ain't he the one what…"

"Let me into Hogwarts, yes."

"But what's a patri… patra…"

"Patronus," I corrected her. "It's like a magical guardian."

"A guardian? So what, he sent it to look after you?"

I shook my head. "It looked like he sent it to give me a message," he mused. "But I've never seen a Patronus do that before."

I wasn't sure what to think. Was the Patronus genuine, or some sort of trap? But then the only person I could think of who would want to trap us, who even knew where we were, was Greyback, and I suspected somehow that this magic, whatever it was, was beyond him. And the voice had, unquestionably, been Dumbledore's.

I glanced at my watch. It was only four in the afternoon, three hours before I was (apparently) supposed to be in Dumbledore's office. Then I looked up at Kay.

The Patronus hadn't said anything about her. Of course, Dumbledore probably didn't know anything about her (although I wouldn't have been surprised if, miraculously, he had known – that man always seemed to know everything), so her omission from the invitation wasn't necessarily an indication that she was unwelcome. Would it be unacceptable to turn up in his office with her in tow?

Even as I was thinking it I knew I had no choice. I would never go without Kay; not that she would have let me anyway.

"We're going," I said, surprised by the resolve in my own voice.

She was frowning. "Going where?"

"To have dinner with Dumbledore."

Her eyes widened. "When?"

"Tonight." I hadn't realised that she hadn't heard the message; she must have arrived just in time to see the Patronus disappear.

"But… Me too?"

"I said 'we,' didn't I?"

"Yeah, but…"

"Dumbledore won't mind," I said, with slightly more confidence than I felt. "He likes… people."

I wasn't sure what I had been about to say; I was aware that "people" was a weak ending, but at the same time it was true. With very few exceptions, Dumbledore liked everyone, was always pleased to meet - well, anyone.

She looked convinced. "So he'll like me?"

"Of course he will," I told her bracingly. At least one thing I knew for sure; Dumbledore would be fascinated by Kay, and would feel at least as compelled to help her as I did.

x-x-x-x-x

Two and a half hours later, Kat and I stood facing each other in the clearing outside our tree house. She had doused the fire, and we were both dressed as smartly as we were able, considering how little both of us had in the way of clothes, and ready to go.

She looked terrified.

"It's all right," I said, reaching out and taking both of her hands. "It's all right."

Squeezing her hands tightly, I disapparated, dragging her along with me.

We reappeared in Hogsmeade, at the foot of the narrow pathway leading up to the station. I let go of Kay's right hand, but kept a tight, reassuring hold on her left as I led her up the familiar mountainside path I had traipsed up and down so many times with James, Sirius and Peter on weekend trips to the village.

The walk took about twenty minutes, and in that time we did not speak. I could sense that Kay was still afraid, but she seemed stunned into silence by her second sighting of the great castle. I supposed it must have looked even more impressive and imposing now that she was on her way to visit it, lights shining down from twinkling turrets in the early winter darkness.

When we reached the wrought iron gates I was relieved to find them open. Still holding Kay's hand, I led her through, and for the first time in over a year found myself in the grounds of my old school.

I gave an involuntary gasp. Hogwarts had not changed in the slightest. The lake expanded far out to my left, the village lights just visible someway down the shore. A little up from the lakeside, a light was on in Hagrid's window. Looking to my right, I could just about make out the silhouette of the Whomping Willow. I wanted to point it out to Kay, but couldn't quite convince my voice to work, so instead I led her around the tree, and to the foot of the stone steps.

Her grip on my hand tightened as we ascended, and then I had to let go so as to push open the heavy front doors. The Entrance Hall rose up around me, hauntingly familiar and yet, after so much time, strangely alien.

Fortunately, I still remembered the way to Dumbledore's office. With just minutes to spare, we burst onto the first floor corridor where I was faced with the ugly stone gargoyle that concealed the entrance.

It was in this moment that I realised I didn't know the password. The thought distracted me only for a moment, however; I was soon distracted by something far more important.

A noise at the opposite end of the corridor from which Kay and I had come made me look up. Seconds later my wand was in my raised hand and I heard myself bellowing, "Expelliarmus!"

Severus Snape was blasted backwards by the force of my spell, his wand flying out from the folds of his robes. I head Kay give a soft cry, but did not pause; without stopping to wonder how a Death Eater had managed to get into the castle, I lifted my wand again and cried, "Petrificus Totalus!"

Snape's legs glued together with a painful sounds thud, and his arms were likewise pinned to his sides. Breathing heavily, I advanced upon the detestable young man who lay, paralysed, in the middle of the corridor.

"How the fuck did you get in here?" I snarled, glowering down at the greasy snake. I was shaking with rage. "What are you…"

"Remus, kindly step away from my Potions master."

I spun around. Albus Dumbledore had emerged from his office and was standing, surveying me with a very sombre expression.

"Your _what?_" I spat, looking from Dumbledore to Snape in alarm.

"Professor Snape has been teaching Potions to Hogwarts students for over a year, Remus. Now, if you would remove him from your hex…"

"Are you _serious_?"

"Dreadfully, Remus, I assure you. Now I ask a third time, and the last, please release Severus, and perhaps you and your charming young companion can join me for dinner, as planned."

At these words, I remembered Kay. My eyes flickered to where she stood, trembling slightly, behind Dumbledore, staring at me as though I had gone completely mad. And I suppose, for all she knew, perhaps I had.

I looked back to Dumbledore, and then back to Snape who, of course, was unable to speak, with his jaws clamped shut by my curse. My mind was in turmoil. It went against my every instinct to release the Death Eater, and yet Dumbledore had never once given me an order that had caused me or anyone else any harm.

I lifted the spell wordlessly and pushed passed Dumbledore onto the stone spiral staircase, gesturing for Kay to follow me. As I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Dumbledore courteously indicating that she should go ahead, and she did so hesitantly.

I paused on the threshold to Dumbledore's office. In spite of everything, I was aware that it would be inappropriate to simply barge in ahead of the Headmaster, so instead I waited, allowing him to pass me and lead me inside. Kay scuttled in behind me and the door swung shut.

As soon as we were alone, I could restrain myself no longer. "What is that… _scum_ doing here?"

Dumbledore turned to survey me patiently. "Severus Snape has redeemed himself, Remus," he told me calmly. "He returned to our side long before Lord Voldemort's disappearance, and has been in my protection ever since."

This news derailed me. "He… You've been protecting him since _before_ James and Lily were killed?"

"Indeed."

"But…" I cast my mind back, trying to remember any reference to Snape's innocence from that time. "You never said…"

"My dear Remus, would you, or anyone else, have believed it for a moment?"

"No." And, looking Dumbledore straight in the face, I told him, "And I still don't."

"Ah." Dumbledore raise an eyebrow gravely. "Then we shall have to agree to disagree, Remus, for I have very good reason…"

"Of course you do," I snarled. "You trust him, like you'll trust anyone…"

"It is true that I will often give the benefit of the doubt where others will not," said Dumbledore, and for the first time I sensed his disapproval with me. "As, Remus, I did with you. I have no reason to regret that decision, any more than I have to doubt the loyalty of Severus Snape."

And of course, I had no response to that.

Dumbledore took advantage of my momentary speechlessness to turn to Kay. "Now, young lady, I don't believe I've had the pleasure…"

Kay turned and gaped at me, clearly too intimidated to speak for herself.

"This is Kay," I told Dumbledore, forcing myself to focus on the introduction and not on all the things I had left to say. "Kay Macmillan."

"Charmed," said Dumbledore, twinkling at her. "Am I to take it – forgive me, my dear, but your scars are something of a giveaway to one who knows something of the subject – that you, like Remus, are inflicted with lycanthropy?"

Kay looked to me, confused, and I realised that the word was probably not one she was familiar with, ironically enough.

"He means are you a werewolf," I translated, and eyes widening, she nodded, looking up at Dumbledore as though she expected him to throw her out of the office window in retaliation.

Instead, of course, he just smiled kindly at her. "In that case, Miss Macmillan, I am delighted that you have found yourself such a willing mentor as Remus Lupin."

And that was it. No questions about where she had come from, where I had found her, any of that. Just a kind smile and a warm glance at me.

Chortling slightly at our stunned expressions, Dumbledore crossed the room to where his desk usually stood. For the first time I noticed that the desk had been replaced with a small dining table, set for two.

"Room for a third, I am sure," said Dumbledore cheerfully, and with a wave of his wand he conjured up a third chair, along with plate and cutlery, and indicated for Kay to take a seat. She looked at me and I nodded; so she settled herself uneasily into one of the chairs. I took up my seat beside her, and Dumbledore joined us, tapping the table with his wand as he did so.

The empty plates in the middle of the table were suddenly filled with food; a joint of pork, and heaps of potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, sausages, Yorkshire puddings, and all the rest, enough to feed a small army. I saw Kay's eyes widen at the sight of all that food.

"I imagine – forgive me, but with times as hard as I'm sure they must be – that you will be somewhat hungry," said Dumbledore gently. "Please do tuck in." Then, without waiting for us, he began to serve himself.

I was grateful that he had taken the lead; after only a moment's hesitation, Kay followed suit, and I too began to load up my plate. As I did so, however, I was bracing myself for the inevitable; surely Dumbledore was about to ask me what I had been doing with myself for the last year?

That moment never came. Instead, Dumbledore turned to me after a moment and said, "Tell me, Remus – do you remember Douglas Abbott?"

I looked up at him, startled, unsure where this question had come from. Douglas had been four or five years older than me at school, but his sister Clara had been in the same year as myself and my friends. Both had been Hufflepuffs.

"I… not well, we never really knew each other…"

"No, he was a little older than you, was he not?"

"Yes, a bit… Professor, why…?"

"I don't know if you are aware, Remus, but Douglas owns a bookshop in Diagon Alley…"

"Flourish and Blotts?"

"No, no, the shop is simply called 'Abbotts.' I believe his grandfather founded it; it specialises in wizarding fiction."

"Oh." I wasn't sure what, exactly, Dumbledore was expecting me to say, or why he was telling me any of this. He must have sensed my confusion.

"I supposed you are wondering what the relevance of this is?"

"Well…"

"Mr Abbott and his wife – a charming young lady, you may remember her – Ruth Collins?"

I shook my head.

"Oh, well, no matter… They have recently had a second child, you see."

I didn't see. This conversation seemed to be getting less, rather than more, relevant to me.

"Yes, and the Abbotts feel that London may not be the most pleasant palce to try to raise a family, so they are moving to set up a new branch in Hogsmeade."

"Oh?" By this point I was feigning interest. Maybe Dumbledore was losing it in his old age – I was still none the wiser as to why he was telling me any of this.

"Yes, indeed, and they need someone to run the London branch."

Ah. There it was. "And you think…?"

"Very much so. I have discussed the matter with Douglas – he didn't remember much about you, I'm afraid, but Clara was more than willing to put in a good word for you…"

Yes, I thought, Clara had always been a good friend of Lily's – and Lily had always been very vocal about my abilities, overly optimistic about my future, and so on. Perhaps some of this had rubbed off on Clara. But then Clara had never known…

"I have, of course, explained your condition to Douglas, and he is still interested in meeting you," said Dumbledore simply, as though reading my mind.

I choked slightly at this news. "Really?"

"Indeed," said Dumbledore, twinkling slightly. "So, may I set up a meeting?"

I found myself staring at Kay. Whatever I decided, I knew, she would have to stay with me. Dumbledore seemed to notice my hesitation. "Of course, you would be at liberty to make staffing arrangements… I am sure Miss Macmillan would be considered eminently suitable as a sales assistant…"

Doubts flooded my head, on that score and on every other. So I was surprised when I heard myself say, "We… we'll meet with Douglas."

Kay flashed me a weak smile, which I returned, and Dumbledore was positively beaming. "Excellent. I shall get in touch with Douglas immediately. Now, that takes care of business… So tell me, my dear," he went on, turning now to Kay, who looked startled at being directly addressed. "For how long has Remus here been teaching you magic?"

How he knew I could not possibly have said. How much more he guessed about mine and Kay's relationship, it was impossible to tell. But as I sat there, eating our dinner and listening as Dumbledore kindly encouraged Kay to converse with him, I did know one thing; once again, Dumbledore had intervened to save me from the wolf inside of me, and I could not have been more grateful.

* * *

**AN: There, I promised I'd try to get this up quickly :) And bit longer than usual too, I hadn't planned the meeting with Snape but added it in at the last minute. Anyway, Chapter 15 should be up by the end of the weekend.**


	15. 3rd January, 1983

Dumbledore insisted that Kay and I stay at Hogwarts for Christmas lunch. We slept in one of the many guest rooms I hadn't known the castle held; Kay fell asleep easily, tired and full, but I lay awake for a long time. I had never expected to spend another night at Hogwarts, and the evening brought back a cluster of bittersweet memories.

All in all I was keen to leave promptly after Christmas dinner, so Kay and I refused the offer of joining Dumbledore for drinks in the staff room (not least because Snape was still prowling around, and had been shooting me death glares all through lunch) and walked down to Hogsmeade, where we apparated back to the tree house.

The next week or so passed in an odd sort of limbo. If we got the job, Kay and I would be leaving the forest to live in Diagon Alley. Even for me this was a strange idea; for Kay, who had lived in those woods since she was twelve, it must have been thoroughly bewildering.

The tension was not helped by the passing of another full moon, the night before New Year's Eve. The result was that we slept through most of New Year's Eve itself, but I awoke a few minutes before midnight and, on realising the time, shook Kay awake.

"Whassit?"

"It's almost next year," I told her. It was most unlike me to care; generally speaking I am not one of life's optimists, and had never seen much possibility of a new year bringing anything less painful than the one that was just ending. But this year, I thought, might just be different. The new year was bringing the chance of a new beginning, and I think it was in that moment that I decided to grasp it with both hands.

And so the Monday morning of our meeting with Douglas Abbott dawned, cold and bright. Dumbledore had, most kindly, presented me with a new suit as a Christmas present; my embarrassed gratitude had been nothing to Kay's when she unwrapped a knee-length brown skirt with matching jacket, and a cream blouse. She had turned scarlet and been rendered mute for a good half an hour. Even as I dressed I felt slightly guilty – Dumbledore had no reason, no need, to be so kind to us, and I felt as though I was taking advantage of his excessively good nature. But I had to admit that he had been right when he gently pointed out that Kay and I could scarcely turn up to interview in the well-worn clothes we had been wearing when we arrived at Hogwarts.

Kay looked even less comfortable than I was, but I think that was as much to do with the clothes themselves as it was unease at Dumbledore's generosity. I somehow doubted that she had ever worn a skirt in her life; something told me that even as a small child, she would have preferred the more practical dress of a tomboy.

When we were as smart as we could be considering we had been living without plumbing for the past year, or several in Kay's case, we turned to face each other, still inside the tree house. I took both of her hands in mine and disapparated.

We reappeared in the Leaky Cauldron, and walked out into the backyard. I let Kay tap the right brick to let us into the Alley this time, and led her down the cobbled street, counting off the shops until we reached the address which, according to the thin, slanted writing on the parchment Dumbledore had given me, housed Abbotts' bookstore.

And sure enough, there it was. Now that I saw it, it was strikingly familiar; on our annual trips to Diagon Alley, I had regularly slunk away from Mum and Dad to come here and flick through the shelves. I had never been able to afford anything, of course, nor to stay too long lest Mum should worry, but quiet, nerdy bookworm as I was then (and still am now), I had loved the place. Just not enough to ever take a note of the name.

A bell tinkled when we opened the door. The shop was quiet, with only a few customers, all solitary, examining shelves of hardbacks. I liked the quiet – Flourish and Blotts had always been to crowded for me, too loud, not like a proper bookshop at all.

We headed to the back of the shop where we found a woman in her late twenties attending the till, her baby son asleep in a gently rocking cradle perched on the countertop. She smiled as we approached.

"Remus! Goodness, I haven't seen you since you were thirteen…"

Again, now that I saw Ruth Abbott, or Collins as she had been then, I recognised her. She had a round, cheerful face, with long blonde hair and surprisingly dark eyes. I remembered her as a friendly Hufflepuff prefect, grinning at me on my first day at Hogwarts much as she was doing now.

"And you must be Kay." Mrs Abbott had turned to Kay, still beaming, and Kay, who I had drilled endlessly in manners over the previous few days, returned it with a thin-lipped smile of her own, and held out a hand. Mrs Abbott clasped it warmly before turning back to me. "Douglas is just in the back, Remus, do go through…" She gestured to the side of the counter, where there was a space to allow access, and I glanced behind her to the open door which, presumably, led into the back rooms.

"Thank you, Mrs Abbott," said Kay politely as she ushered us through.

"Oh, do call me Ruth," said Mrs Abbott, and Kay gave a little nod.

In the back room, we found Mr Abbott, surrounded by piles of paper, and boxes of books, which appeared to be pricing themselves as he supervised. A small girl, blonde like her mother, was perched on his lap, and I felt a pang – she must have been within weeks of Harry in age.

Mr Abbott beamed as broadly as his wife upon sight of us. A short, slightly chubby man, with dark hair and eyes, he unseated the little girl with a gentle push. "Go out and sit with Mama, Hannah."

She tumbled off his lap and, giving Kay and I curious looks, toddled out to the front. I heard Mrs Abbott give a delighted greeting before Mr Abbott, who had arisen at the same time as his daughter and followed after her, pushed the door shut. He then turned to me and shook my hand vigorously. "Remus. I daresay you don't really remember me…"

This was only half true. As with the shop and his wife, seeing Mr Abbott had brought back certain memories, this time of a friendly, plump boy with a permanently flushed face. I think he had also been a prefect. However, the memory was too vague; it would look as though I was just saying I remembered to impress him, so instead I said "Not really, sir, no."

He laughed at this. "None of the 'sir' nonsense, my name's Douglas. Now, Miss Macmillan, isn't it? I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure."

"No, Mr Douglas, sir," said Kay, who was flushing a little under pressure. "And it's just Kay, sir, no one ain't… I mean, no one's used my surname for years."

With an approaching job interview, I had finally bitten the bullet and spoken to Kay about her grammar. I smiled encouragingly at her as she corrected herself.

"No? Kay it is, then. Well, now we're all acquainted, won't you take a seat?" Without giving us time to point out that there was only one chair in the room, Douglas conjured two more out of the air and gestured for us to sit. We did so, as he fell back into his own.

"So, Remus. I understand neither of you have worked before because of your – ahem – condition…"

I sensed Kay squirming in her seat next to me, and willed her not to react strongly. Fortunately she managed to contain herself.

"But a big reader, Dumbledore said?"

"Yes." I sat up a little straighter; retail experience, no, financial expertise, no – but books I knew about. "I remember your shop from when I was little."

"Oh?" Douglas looked delighted. "Of course, it would have been my father then, George Abbott – my mother didn't help out much, you know, not like Ruth – but I was working here through the summers from the age of about sixteen."

"I see." I shifted slightly in my seat. "I used to sneak in here when my Mum had lost me while we were supposed to be buying schoolbooks."

At this, Douglas let out a great, booming laugh. "A man after my own heart! And Kay, dear, do you read much?"

This was the question I had been dreading. I threw Kay a sideways glance, and saw that she was twisting her hands in her lap. "Not since I were – _was_ little," she admitted. "I didn't… well, it were hard, you see… _was _hard..."

"Yes, Dumbledore explained about your past living arrangements," said Douglas matter-of-factly, before she could get herself into any further difficulties, and I gave a little start; I couldn't remember telling Dumbledore about Kay's history. "Not much opportunity for reading, in the Scottish woods, I wouldn't have thought."

"No, sir."

"Douglas, Douglas. So, Remus, you'd be in overall charge of the shop, you see, and Kay would be a shop assistant to help out."

We had moved onto technicalities astoundingly quickly; I found myself wondering whether I had somehow zoned out through the bulk of the real interview, but of course I knew that wasn't possible.

"Obviously the business will remain mine, and you'll be reporting to me…"

I stared at him, slightly incredulous, as he set out a detailed business plan of how the arrangement was going to work. "And of course, you can make use of the flat above the shop, rent free," he finished, and looked at us both as though the whole matter was already agreed.

Kay and I looked at each other, and I saw my own confusion reflected in her face.

"So…" I was unsure how to proceed. Did we have the job? It certainly seemed so, but I didn't like to presume. "I guess you'll be interviewing other people?" I tried carefully.

"Gracious, no," said Douglas, looking surprised. "The place is yours if you want it, Remus – and I must say, I rather hope you do."

I looked at Kay again, and saw that her mouth was hanging slightly open. I widened my eyes at her, and she realised, and slammed it shut.

"Tell you what," said Douglas. "How about you two wander off for a little walk, and I'll see you back here in, say, half an hour?" He stood, winking at us, and opened the door for us to leave. "Little bit of time to talk it over?"

"I… yes, thank you," I said hurriedly, standing and gesturing for Kay to follow. He waved us out and Mrs Abbott, who was supervising as Hannah sat cross-legged on the floor drawing, smiled warmly as we left.

Out in the bright, cold street, Kay and I turned to each other stunned. "So we got the job?" asked Kay, her brow furrowed. "Is it always that easy?"

"Very much not," I replied, with feeling.

"So," she said slowly, clearly trying just to get her head around the day's events. "We've got a job… and a flat… and money… and we'll be working for a really nice family… and living _here_…" We both glanced around us. I could see how exciting a prospect it must be for Kay, to live in Diagon Alley after six years in a forest, cut off from the wizarding world.

"That's about the measure of it, yes," I confirmed, watching her closely.

"Aha." She stared at the ground for a moment, apparently lost in thought. Then she looked up at me. "So, um, what are we talking over, exactly?"

"Whether it's a good idea," I said my own brow furrowing. What did she think we were doing?

"But what's there to talk about? No-brainer, ain't it? I mean, isn't it?"

I paused. I somehow suspected that there would be catches which Kay clearly wasn't anticipating. At the same time… well, it was an opportunity we were very lucky to have been offered. It was unlikely that anything similar would ever come up again. And all things considered…

"Yes," I said softly. "I guess it is."

She grinned. "So we're doing this?"

"We are," I said, returning the smile, and only now absorbing what was happening myself.

"We're leaving the forest!"

"Yes!"

"We're going to live in _Diagon Alley!_ With a warm flat and proper food and a job and money and… Oh, Remus!" With a sudden squeal of delight, she flung her arms tightly around my neck, burying her face against my shoulder.

I patted her awkwardly on the back. People were staring at us as they walked passed, and public demonstrations of affection were a new experience for me. I wasn't sure I was entirely comfortable with it.

All the same, you don't make a life-changing decision every day, so I couldn't stop myself bending down and kissing her. Then I looked up, and realised that the Abbotts were beaming at us through the shop window.

Of course they already knew that we'd accepted their offer, but we still had to go in and make it official. I took Kay's hand and led her into the shop, trying not to wonder as I did so what, exactly, Dumbledore had said or done to ensure that this happened for us, nor to worry about the hopeless matter of how we could ever repay him.


	16. 10th January, 1983

A week later, again on the Monday morning, Kay and I left the tree house for the last time. We packed up the few possession we had that hadn't been transfigured from bits of trees, pocketed our wands and, dressed again in the clothes Dumbledore had given us as Christmas presents, stepped out into the clearing. I knew that once we had left, it would be only a few days before the enchantments on the tree wore off and this clearing became just another corner of a forest, forgotten and left to grow wild. I felt a slight pang, but at the same time had no regrets. The tree house had been my home for fourteen months, but out of necessity rather than choice or attachment. I doubted that we would miss our lives in the woods.

We apparated to the Leaky Cauldron and walked through Diagon Alley to the shop. The Abbotts had already packed up and left for Hogsmeade, where Ruth, Hannah and Jamie, the baby, were now; Douglas had come back to the shop to make sure the move ran smoothly. The shop was closed for the day, and so instead of entering through the store, I pulled Kay down a little passageway that ran to the side of the building, leading to a back door. This door took us through to the back room of the shop, where Douglas was sitting, absent-mindedly sorting through books.

Of course he appeared delighted to see us. Kay flushed when he kissed her cheek in welcome, and he grasped my hand so tightly I had to flex the fingers after he'd let go just to restore feeling.

He led us up the winding stairs to the flat, which would be our new home. There were two bedrooms, one larger, one poky, leading off a small central room that combined kitchen, dining room and living room. Between the bedrooms was a small bathroom, with real plumbing and hot water. By anyone else's standards the flat might have been small and unimpressive, and certainly Douglas kept apologising for its deficiencies, but after all our time in the forest, to Kay and I it seemed heavenly.

The Douglas was taking us through technicalities, pricing, ordering, book-balancing, reporting back to him, and I was carefully absorbing it all and Kay was clearly trying to do the same, and then he was clapping me on the back and shaking my hand again, and kissing Kay on the cheek, and then he was gone.

As soon as we were left to our own devices, Kay ran back upstairs to the flat. She looked in every kitchen cupboard – they were all empty, but this did not seem to bother her – and examined the oven closely; she ran her finger over the spines of the handful of books Douglas had left on the shelf; she straightened the four chairs gathered around the dining table; and I stood in the middle of the room, watching with a mixture of affection and amusement. Perhaps I should have been sad at all these reminders of how long it had been since she lived in a proper, civilised home, but I couldn't. Her excitement and pleasure was infectious.

She went in to check the smaller bedroom, which was neatly made up as though for a guest, and came out a minute later, holding a letter in her hand and frowning. "Why has Douglas left me a note in the spare room?"

There were so many questions hidden within that simple one that I didn't know where to begin trying to answer them, so I just asked her, "What does it say?"

She unfolded the note and read it aloud. "Dear Kay. I wasn't sure whether you'd rather use this as a spare bedroom or for yourself, so I've made it up for you. Of course, we always found it made a lovely nursery… Feel free to do as you please." She wrinkled her nose. "It's from Ruth."

I found myself staring at her. It had occurred to me, of course, that once we were back in the real world, we would have to start facing up to some questions that we had always avoided. In the forest there had never been any need to put a label on our relationship; it was what it was, and with no one to ask questions we never came up with the answers. Now, though, we might have to start addressing the issue, and somehow I sensed that the second bedroom and what to do with it would have to be a big part of that.

I was clear about one thing, if only that one; whatever Ruth might have been suggesting in that awful note, it could never again be a nursery. At least not while Kay and I were still living in the flat.

"So…" Kay was looking anxiously at me. I knew she was waiting for something, but I wasn't sure what, and I doubt she was either.

"I'm in the spare room, then?" she asked eventually.

"No." The speed of my own response shocked me. But I had become so used to waking up with Kay beside me, knowing where she was, that the idea of sleeping in an empty bed terrified me. I suspected that if I awoke in the middle of the night and she wasn't there I would panic, convinced she had managed to get herself into trouble.

She smiled cheekily at my response. "Good." She ran a hand over my backside as she passed me to the master bedroom, and I found myself blushing. Somehow it was a little different to be touched by her here in this flat; even though it was, of course, utterly private, it felt strangely public when we were so much closer to people and to civilised society. Not wanting her to see my flush, I pulled a book off the shelf at random and began to read, as I listened to her fumbling around the bedroom, hanging our few clothes on the hangers in the wardrobe.

_Clothes,_ I found myself thinking absently. _We're going to have to buy some more of those._

First, though, we would need to feed ourselves, so after a while I heaved myself back up out of the armchair, and went to join Kay.

Now that Douglas had gone, she had pulled off her uncomfortable work clothes and was back in jeans and a polo shirt. I smiled at the familiar sight, and went to retrieve my own jeans. It would be unnecessary, not to mention uncomfortable, to go grocery shopping in my suit. I changed quickly, suggesting as I did so that Kay should come with me. She nodded, looking unimaginably pleased at the idea. What was a chore for most people was still a novelty for us.

Douglas had agreeably paid our first month's salary in advance, both into my vault, so I led Kay up to Gringotts and withdrew just enough for essential groceries. Admittedly there was now more gold in my vault than there had been for years, but I had no intention of spending any more than was strictly necessary. When you've lived through so many 'rainy days,' you find yourself constantly preparing for the next one.

Diagon Alley was spotted with market stores selling groceries, so we wandered from one to another as I picked out what we needed and Kay, not interested in mundane items such as vegetables, peered into shop windows displaying more exciting, magical wares.

When we were done, I could see that Kay was in no mood to go back to the flat; she was busy enjoying her surroundings. Not wanting to spoil her fun, but at the same time aware that I needed to make a start on dinner, I suggested that she come back to the flat in an hour, and she eagerly agreed. It wasn't until I was on my way back to the flat without her that I remembered how frightened she had been, her first time in Diagon Alley, and marvelled at the difference now.

It had been a long time since I had the chance to cook dinner in a proper kitchen. I'd never been a good cook; after I'd left Hogwarts, I had always lived alone, and had never imagined that that would change, so it had seemed unnecessary to learn just for my own sake. Today, though, I was determined to give Kay a decent dinner, if only to prove that I could.

When Kay tumbled through the door an hour later, flushed and excited, it was to the smell of singed pork. She laughed to see me, red-faced and strained, trying to tease the two chops of the bottom of the frying pan, as pans of water and vegetables overflowed around me. She didn't try to help, instead settling herself down at the table and waiting for me to present her with whatever I could salvage.

In fact, the meal was not a total disaster. Only the bottoms of the chops were charred, and the vegetables, while somewhat overcooked, were at least edible. We ate in companionable quiet, and then Kay valiantly volunteered to wash up. I let her, returning to the novel I had been leafing through earlier.

When she had finished, Kay crossed to the bookshelf and began peering at the volumes lined up on it. There was a small frown on her face.

"What are you doing?" I asked her; I had been watching out of the corner of my eye.

"I thought I should maybe read something, if I'm gonna work in a book shop," she said vaguely, before finally selecting a book and curling up in the other armchair.

I smiled. "Don't if you don't want to."

"I don't know if I want to, do I? Never had the chance, really."

There was so much truth in this that I found myself unable to respond, so instead I went back to my own book and left her to it.

I have always been able to lose immense amounts of time reading; and I hadn't had the opportunity to do so for a very, very long time. It was not for my own sake, therefore, that I was surprised when I looked up some time later and realised that it was nearly midnight. I assumed Kay would have fallen asleep, but when I glanced at her, I realised that she was very much awake, her eyes still fixed intently on the pages of the book. I could see from the number of pages gone that she was slow reader, but I was surprised, and somewhat impressed, by how absorbed she was.

"Hey," I said quietly, and she looked up, blinking hard as though it was an effort to focus on something other than words. "Hmm?"

"I think it's time for bed," I pointed out gently, and she looked up at the clock. Her eyes widened when she saw the time. "Oh yeah…"

I stood and held out a hand, and she took it, letting me pull her up out of the chair. She followed me to the bedroom, and then, suddenly taking control, pushed me onto the bed.

I let her straddle me, the hot warmth of her kisses intensified by the unusual feeling of clean, fresh, cool sheets against my back. I sat up to meet her, wrapping both arms tightly behind her back, so that we were pressed tightly together as her hands tousled my hair. Overcome by a sudden need for her, I made quick work of her clothes and rolled her over onto her back.

She gasped as I worked my mouth up and down her body, tasting every inch of skin that I could reach, before her hands were in my hair again and she forced my head down, demanding that I stop teasing. I obeyed, more eager than ever before to please her. It felt as though tonight was important; it was a promise. Tonight we stopped living like animals and found our new lives amongst wizards, and it was vital that we both knew that everything we had had once before was coming with us into this new stage of our lives.

Sometime later, I lay back on the bed and she nestled into my side, her hand wandering over my stomach as she traced the thin white lines of my scars. It was an unconscious gesture, just one more reminder that our inner wolves were always a part of our lives, even when we tried to hide them; but I didn't say anything, let her delicate hands perform their idle dance.

If I had had the desire to speak, I might have said all sorts of things. I might have filled the night with talk of our future, with optimism and plans. But I didn't. I supposed I was frightened lest anything I said be taken as some sort of promise. At that moment I was full of hope, but even lying there I was aware of the doubt and scepticism that lay beneath. Ours was a precarious existence, and I was even then unwilling to say anything that would suggest that we had something permanent, something safe.

If I had learnt one thing, it was that nothing is ever safe.

Even so, for now there was a sense of contentment in the room, and that contentment was born of a hope and security that might be transient, but that I wasn't going to dispel with any misplaced words. So instead we lay still, holding each other, and I don't know who fell asleep first.

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**AN: Sorry that this chapter is mostly filler and fluff. Once the plot starts up again things are going to get less cheerful, so I was really just putting the moment off when I have to shatter the happiness...**

**Next update won't be until the weekend at least, as I'll be without a computer for the week, so sorry in advance for the wait.**

**And because I don't say it enough, thank you to everyone who's read this far, especially if you've followed/favourite/reviewed (and particularly to DerangedDynamic, whose enthusiastic encouragement is always appreciated!)**


	17. 29th January, 1983

**AN: Hi everyone, sorry it's been a bit of a wait for this update!**

**I'd just like to say thank you to my anonymous reviewer from last week, since I can't message you, and also update everyone on something that came up there. It was mentioned that there's a bit less Wolfstar than some of you expected - I know, I am teasing you, aren't I?! I'd just like to reassure everyone that Sirius will not be staying locked up in the cell in Remus' head forever, any more than he will in the cell in Azkaban - so there's lots more Wolfstar in the future, it's just a bit of a way off yet (I'm not sure quite how long this fic is going to end up being, as I have an overall idea of where the plot is going but haven't planned it in detail, but it could potentially turn into a bit of a monster).**

**Speaking of the plot, rest assured that it will recommence in the next chapter - I'm aware we seem to be going through a bit of a filler stage at the moment but we're getting there!**

**This is quite a long AN so I'm going to stop rambling and hand over to Remus now.**

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Our first two weeks working at Abbotts' were a steep learning curve. I knew a fair amount about fiction, but nothing about selling it; and for all that Kay had begun reading hungrily, she couldn't make up for eighteen years without books, and didn't even know the names of prominent wizarding authors.

Customer service was an alien concept to both of us, and I had been concerned about Kay, who wasn't used to human contact at all - but I needn't have worried. Her lack of social experience manifested not in awkward silence, but in a frankness that our customers seemed to find quite refreshing. If she didn't know the answer to their questions she would be honest about her shortcomings; she was casual and humorous where others might have been stiff and overly professional; and her genuine curiosity led her to easily make conversation with those she met, who seemed to enjoy her friendly chatter.

I confess that I was less at ease with that part of the work. There were very few wizards around who knew what I was, and they rarely came into the shop; but memories of harsh words and blatant mistrust made me permanently paranoid that each new customer knew our secret, or would sense it as soon as they came in. I was always on edge, sure that it would only be a matter of time before we were caught out. In the end Kay banished me to the back room, where I took up the business of running the business and left her to deal with our clientele, emerging only when she needed me.

I daresay it sounds dull, but actually the back room became a sort of haven to me. It had been so long since I had been able to surround myself with books – since I had left Hogwarts, in fact – that I grasped the opportunity now with both hands. Douglas was soon impressed by my knowledge of authors, and allowed me pretty much free reign in ordering new stock. I ever convinced him to allow us to open up a section devoted to Muggle fiction, as curiosities if nothing else. Some wizards and witches loved reading Muggle stories about witches and wizards and magical beasts, Tolkien and Lewis and Carroll, laughing at all they got wrong and marvelling at how much they got right. Others enjoyed stories set in the Muggles' own world; Arthur Weasley, an old friend from the Order, used to come in once a week, if he could escape the watchful gaze of his wife, and the chaos of a house full of seven children, to collect paperbacks by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, claiming that this qualified as research – I never had the heart to explain that the versions of Muggle life portrayed in those books were scarcely typical or up-to-date.

I almost found myself enjoying those first couple of weeks, but one thought continued to hang over me. It didn't seem to bother Kay – she was the happiest I had ever seen her – but the wolf gnawed at me, as it had done all my life, reminding me that this was all very well, but come the end of January, we would be facing a new challenge.

The shop had a basement, which the Abbotts had been using as a storage room. We transferred the books that couldn't fit in the back room to our second bedroom, instead, and cleared the cellar for our own purposes.

In the two days before the full moon, I spent all my spare time reinforcing the space we were to be using. The task was made more difficult by the fact that there was no one to lock us in; that had to be achieved from the inside. I managed to cut a little cubbyhole out of the floor into which the key could be dropped and concealed safely throughout the transformation, and performed some rather difficult spellwork so that the locking of the door with the key would trigger any number of security spells. It was, I hoped, fool-proof – or at least wolf-proof. We did have the advantage that in wolf form, Kay and I could often calm one another down; although for both of us, this would be the first transformation in a confined space for some time, which was bound to agitate the wolves.

But there was no other choice available, so on the night of the full moon, Kay and I locked up the shop, headed down to the cellar, and locked ourselves in, slotting the key under the floor as planned. In the minutes we had spare, I tested the door; safe as houses, or so it would seem.

However easy or difficult the time spent as a wolf may be, dependant on all sorts of factors, the transformation itself never changes. I never speak of those few minutes if I can help it; for there are no words to describe the agony, and even if there were, I would be reluctant to use them, preferring as I do not to think of that time if at all possible.

It is very hard to describe the lack of awareness that one feels as a wolf; especially as the memories the next day are always so hazy. I became conscious, if that can be the word, that I was in a strange, dark, grey place, with walls and floors and ceilings everywhere and nowhere to run. And I was also distinctly aware that there was something else in the darkness with me.

The smaller female knocked me flying as she flew into my side, growling fiercely. Some small part of me knew that something was wrong, very wrong, and that I shouldn't attack, but that part was too human to have any say in what happened next. For the first time since the night we met, I flung myself at the other wolf in retaliation, knocking her against the wall. She slid down the concrete, landing in a sprawled bundle on the floor. I braced myself for her next attack, but it never came; instead, she stared me out, growling with aggression and fear.

Inside me some thought – or nothing so complete as a thought, an instinct – was fighting to be heard. I approached the fallen she-wolf very slowly, poised to defend myself if need be. She seemed to be fighting the urge to attack, and that felt wrong, because what wolf ever resists that most primal of urges?

And then I smelt it. Her scent had been obscured by the smells of a new place, but at last I recognised it, as though smelling it for the first time in many years. I stopped snarling, and the fur that stood on its ends began to settle.

I could still sense her fear, but she let me approach, let me nuzzle against her neck, and finally I knew one thing, at least. I didn't know where I was or what, or whether I was safe or whether I would be able to hunt here, but I knew not to hurt the she-wolf.

x-x-x-x-x

When we woke up, we were both stiff and cold. The unforgiving concrete beneath us was somehow far more painful that the bracken undergrowth of the forest, but at the same time, I reminded myself as I sat slowly up, this time there was a real, soft, warm bed waiting for us. I scrabbled for the right slab and buried underneath it for the key, and Kay twitched at the noise, rolling onto her back and allowing her eyes to flutter open. "Remus?"

"I'm here." I pulled myself up so that I could fit the key into the lock, and as it clicked open the enchantments fell away, allowing us our way out.

"Time is it?"

"I don't know," I admitted, holding out a hand to help her stumble to her feet.

"The shop…"

"Doesn't matter," I reminded her gently. "Douglas knows we won't be opening today."

It was a Saturday. This was, of course, the big flaw in my hiring another werewolf to help me; there was no one to mind the shop on the days after full moon. But then it seemed unlikely that I would have been able to find anyone else willing to work for me anyway (and I was sure that I would be unable to conceal the truth from someone who was allowed that close), and it was only the odd day.

She made a quiet little noise that I took for relief, but might just as well have been frustration, and followed me upstairs to the flat, where we fell into bed, exhausted.

When I awoke a few hours later, however, I found myself alone. I checked the rest of the flat but Kay was nowhere to be seen, so I dressed quickly and went downstairs, checking the clock as I left – it was two in the afternoon.

The mystery was solved as soon as I got downstairs and found the door leading out to the shop open. Kay was there, serving a severe looking elderly woman in a green dress, carrying a bright red handbag.

"I told you we didn't have to open today," I reminded her in a quiet whisper which the old woman, unfortunately, heard.

"There's no use whispering, I daresay my hearing's better than either of yours," she snapped, and now that I looked at her properly, she looked faintly familiar. "But you do look peaky, girl… As do you," she added, looking at me shrewdly.

I smiled weakly. "It's not contagious."

"I'm glad to hear it," she remarked, and took the books Kay was holding out for her. "Come, Neville."

It was the boy's name that did it. As she swept out of the shop, her little grandson toddling along behind her, I found myself whispering, "Augusta Longbottom!"

Fortunately, whatever she may have believed about her own hearing, she didn't not catch my murmur. "What?" said Kay, frowning after the woman.

Yes, what indeed. "I shared a dormitory with her son at school," I explained simply, trying not to think about the last time I had heard the Longbottom name. _Leading Aurors Tortured in Attempt to Find You-Know-Who._

"Looked a bit little for that," Kay said dryly, and I smiled in spite of myself. "That wasn't her son. That was her grandson." _And a poor, unfortunate child he is too,_ I thought, though of course I said nothing. I wondered whether Frank and Alice Longbottom had survived, and if so, whether they had ever recovered their minds.

Shaking this thought from my head, I turned back to Kay. "Anyway! We said we weren't going to open today!"

The shop was empty now so I felt no need to whisper. Kay just shrugged. "I woke up at lunchtime and felt fine, so I thought, it would be best to…"

"Really?" I was half impatient, half impressed. "After all that, you want to spend today dealing with customers?"

She shrugged again. "I like them."

"I…" This threw me. "I know you do, Kay," I managed after a pause. "But that doesn't mean you have to…"

"It makes me feel better, pretending to be normal," she said simply, and I had no reply to that. After all, hadn't I always felt better once James, Sirius and Peter arrived, wreaking havoc in the Hospital Wing – however much Madame Pomfrey might have protested that it was bad for me?

So instead of arguing, I found that it was my turn to shrug. "Fine. But if you feel unwell, just close early, okay?"

"Yep," she said, but I could tell that she wasn't really listening – a young couple had wandered into the shop, and they had already commanded all of Kay's attention.

I shook my head incredulously, and headed into the back room. My head still felt decidedly foggy, and I wasn't sure I could cope with the attentions of cheerful non-werewolves just yet. Instead, I scrabbled for some parchment and started penning a letter to Douglas.

_Dear Douglas,_ I wrote, and hesitated. I had already explained to our boss that I never wrote anything down in letters about my lycanthropy – it was too risky that someone might come across it. But at the same time, I had promised that I would reassure him that the first transformation had gone well. Eventually I settled on some appropriate words.

_Fortunately mine and Kay's illness was short-lived,_ I scrawled. _No problems managing it, and Kay even felt well enough to open the shop this afternoon! Thanks as ever for your understanding._

_All my best to Ruth and the children,_

_Remus_

It was brief, but it said all that needed to be said, and didn't give anything away. I could scarcely go into more detail without running the risk of revealing too much to any third-party reader.

I folded the letter and addressed it, ready to take it to the Post Office later that afternoon, before folding my arms on my desk and laying my head down upon them. I would never normally have been out of bed yet on the day after a full moon, and I was unreasonably exhausted. I wondered briefly how Kay was managing it before I dozed off into a peaceful slumber.


	18. 11th June, 1983

**AN: Since you had to wait so long for the last chapter, thought I'd get this one up as quickly as I could... I didn't intend Arthur to be in this scene but he invited himself along, and for completeness I should observe that I don't own the ****_Just William_**** books - those are Richmal Crompton's.**

* * *

I don't think I had ever experienced such a simple, happy and above all, safe, six months as those at the beginning of our time tending that shop. I had more money than I could ever remember having (though, ever paranoid, I refused to spend any more than I had to), a comfortable home, a job I enjoyed, and most strange and wonderful of all, someone to share it all with. Kay and I somehow managed to avoid having the serious conversations I had envisaged we would have to endure, about our relationship and our future together. By ignoring the issue, we found that it didn't really need to be addressed; I think we were both happy as things were, whatever that meant, and neither of us felt any need to disturb it. As for what the rest of the world thought, our regular customers soon realised that we were living together and drew their own inferences from that fact. No one ever asked – I suppose they had no real reason to do so.

I won't pretend that I never worried that the happiness may be temporary. More than that – I was convinced that it must be. And yet after so many years of short-lived comfort, I had learned not to dwell on the pain that the future would inevitably bring, but to enjoy whatever peace could be found while it lasted.

On this occasion, our fragile semblance of security endured until the middle of June, when Greyback eventually found as. As I had known he must.

It had been surprisingly quiet for a Saturday. I was in the backroom, sorting through a new order of children's books. I was just wrinkling my nose up at Beatrix Bloxam's _Toadstool Tales_ (hearing the original, uncensored versions of wizarding fairy-tales had never done me any harm, and I had little patience with such sugary nonsense, but they were popular with some mothers) when I heard Kay's voice, slightly raised and urgent. "Remus!"

I didn't need my keen werewolf senses to recognise her fear. I rose at once and hurried out into the shop, knocking over a stack of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ (much better stories) in my rush.

I wasn't surprised to see him standing there – it was as if I had known the moment I heard Kay's raised voice.

I had never seen him in such a civilised setting. Ordinarily he shunned the everyday and the domestic, choosing to intercept me when I was out in wilder surroundings, presumably after tailing me for some time to get me on my own and out in the open. He looked even huger than ever standing in our little shop, surrounded by stacks of books (I found myself wondering, innocuously, whether he could even read), his shaggy head almost brushing against the ceiling.

"What do you want?" I had given up on any semblance of politeness. Kay took a step backwards and her hand slipped into mine as we both stared him out.

He grinned, displaying two rows of yellow teeth. Somehow they seemed sharper than a human being's ought to be.

"You know what I want, Remus."

"Have you not noticed yet that we're not interested?" Kay's grip on my hand tightened and I knew that she wanted me to stop, to be more careful. But for the first time, I was facing Greyback in what was truly my own territory, and my anger that he had found the gall to sound us out here in our little haven outweighed my fear of him.

His grin just broadened. "Ah, Remus, I live in hope."

"Where's your little pet?" I spat, hoping to have scored a hit. "Samec get bored of you, did he?"

Greyback chuckled, and I felt Kay shiver beside me. "Oh, no, Remus, Milos is just out running a few little errands for me."

"You mean he's terrorising some other poor innocent person into coming back to your little pack?"

"I mean that he is helping another of our kind discover their true potential, yes."

"Not _our_ kind. You and I aren't the same, Greyback." I dropped the Kay's hand and came round the counter, staring him dead in the face. "In no way are we the same."

Greyback's eyes scanned over my face, and I was disgusted to see his long, dark tongue running across his lips as he took me in. But then he looked passed me, and began to advance on Kay.

She tried to back away, but the door had closed behind her and she clearly didn't dare to turn her back on Greyback to open it.

"Anyway, Princess, you're a little quiet today, aren't you?"

I saw her swallow hard, but I knew how easy it was to lose the power of speech when confronted by Greyback, and could not blame her when she opened her mouth and nothing but a choking sound came out.

"Still letting the boyfriend speak for you?" He had reached the counter now, and I saw him drop a small square of card onto it. "Well, angel face, if you ever change your mind, you just let me know and we'll have a little chat."

I found myself laughing, even though there was nothing remotely funny about the situation. "_Business cards,_ Greyback? You're handing out _business cards,_ now? What kind of psychopath…"

"I sometimes find," said Greyback, cutting over the rest of my insult, "That people change their mind after a few days. Especially those who have loved ones not yet brought round to our ways…"

"Yes, I would imagine that some people would rather join you than have you bite their children," I snarled, and comprehension dawned in Kay's wide, confused eyes as she realised what Greyback was threatening.

"That won't work," she said defiantly, and the familiar surge of pride was so strong that I had to fight the urge to cross the room and stand beside her. "I haven't got anyone I love who isn't a werewolf already." Her eyes met mine for a moment, and I felt a pang of guilt when I remembered that, eighteen months on, I had yet to return those words. But then she looked back to Greyback. "So there's nothing you can do to me. I won't change my mind for anything."

"Well aren't you getting prettily spoken," sneered Greyback. "And I wouldn't be so sure about that, sweetheart. There are always things I can do to you."

"Like what?" She sounded a little less confident now, but I was impressed that she maintained his glare.

He laughed softly, and my skin crawled. "Oh, little vixen, that would be telling."

The little bell to announce a new customer sounded, and all three of us spun on the spot.

Arthur Weasley was wiping his boots on the mat, chattering cheerfully. "I just thought I'd pop by and see if you had any more of those _Just William_ books, Remus, they really do make me chuckle – though Molly's banned me from reading them aloud to the twins, she thinks I'm giving them ideas! What do you think of that, eh?" He tailed off as he looked up and his eyes moved from me, fists and jaw clenched, to Kay, still pressed up against the door, and finally to Greyback, standing between us. He had turned and was surveying Arthur as though he were a particularly fine steak.

Arthur opened his mouth several times before any words came out. "Greyback," he managed finally, and he looked back between me and Kay. Even from a few feet away, I could read the question in his eyes – had Greyback been invited here?

He must have sensed fairly quickly that the answer was no. For a moment relief flickered across his face as he realised that Greyback was still no friend of mine, but then he seemed to remember that friend or foe, the wizarding world's most savage psychopath was standing a few yards from him and he instantly whitened.

Fortunately, Greyback seemed to have realised that there was nothing to be gained by staying. Turning his back on Arthur, he directed his parting words to Kay. "Remember, my pretty – I'm always interested." Without even a parting glance at me, he swept through the room, and Arthur almost fell over himself clearing the doorway so that Greyback could leave.

"He hasn't given up, then," said Arthur darkly, as soon as the door had closed.

I remembered the evening during the war when Dumbledore had first asked me to spy on the werewolf colony, and my outright refusal. Regardless of how important it might have been to know what was going on, I had been unable to put myself that close to Greyback, and had explained why, in no uncertain terms, to all the Order members present at the meeting. Instead I had agreed to act as spy among the smaller packs springing up around the place, those who were considering Greyback's views but had not yet joined him. "Not yet, no," I said quietly.

"He's pretty fixated on you," Arthur said, and I squirmed uncomfortably under his penetrating look.

"Well, I was one of his," I said with uneasy dismissiveness. "I think it galls him that I got away."

This had always worked in the past, but now Arthur was shaking his head. "No. It's more than that, isn't it? He wants you especially."

I felt Kay's eyes burning into my skin and looked at the ground. "I don't…"

"Remus. He's been following you for years. He must know you're a lost cause, yet he won't give up on you."

I looked at Kay, who had yet to speak. She was staring at me, patiently, as if she knew that I was moments away from telling the truth.

I sighed. "Let's close the shop, Kay."

x-x-x-x-x

Half an hour later we were all in the flat, drinking milky tea. It had been nearly closing time anyway, so we had quickly locked up, leaving cashing up until after Arthur had gone. Kay was curled up in an armchair, and still hadn't said a word, was just waiting for me to share what perhaps I should have shared before. Arthur was clearly anxious, but his hands were steady as he held the mug. "So, Remus."

I sighed again, as though I had hoped that somehow they would have forgotten the matter in the previous half hour. "You're right," I said heavily. "He does particularly want me. He always did. That's the reason he bit me in the first place."

"But why?" Finally, Kay spoke, her brow furrowed in a tiny frown.

"You remember when I told you about the night I was bitten?" I asked her, aware that Arthur did not know the story and hoping he wouldn't ask.

She nodded. "Coming home from a walk in the Lake District."

"Exactly. Well, I didn't know this until much later, but Greyback wasn't there at random."

"He hunted you out?"

"Yes."

"But why you?"

I sat back in my armchair, closing my eyes. I suppose I thought that if I didn't look at them as I told the story, I wouldn't have to see the reaction, wouldn't have to relate the story coming from my mouth to my own past. If I didn't have to watch them and react to their reactions, I could get the whole thing over and done with quickly, just like ripping off a plaster.

"My father worked for the Werewolf Support Services," I said quietly, my hands tightening on the arms of the chair. "It's not – there are a couple of departments at the Ministry to deal with werewolves. There's the Registry and the Capture Unit, and they work to control werewolves who break the Code of Conduct, things like that… Mostly maniacs in there who think we should all be locked up..."

"I know a couple," Arthur murmured quietly, but he seemed to sense that I wasn't welcoming discussion. I wanted my story out quickly, if it had to be shared at all.

"Dad was always sympathetic, he knew that most werewolves are good people, they've just been unlucky. Actually, Kay," and now I opened my eyes, looked at Kay, and voiced something that had been bothering me for a while. "One of their main jobs is making sure the families of werewolves don't do what yours did, and ostracise victims. Anyway, Dad was good at his job and he ended up Head of the Office.

"And then, just after I turned six, Greyback turned up at the Office. He had some changes in mind for the Code of Conduct and he wanted the Office's backing." I closed my eyes again, rubbing my hands over my face as though trying to wipe the memory away. "As you can imagine, they were… terrible. Greyback believed, still believes, of course, that it's cruel to prevent werewolves from hunting. That's what we're evolved to do, after all. He wanted the Ministry to approve all sorts of vile schemes – including Muggle hunting."

Kay made a low growling noise. I sensed Arthur shifting uneasily in his sleep.

"It was Dad's job to report anyone like that to the Beasts Division and the Werewolf Capture Unit," I went on. "Werewolves like Greyback – they're dangerous. Not dangerous like you or I are, Kay, not just dangerous if we and they don't take care – actively dangerous. Deliberately dangerous. So he reported Greyback and he's been hauled backwards and forwards in front of the Ministry ever since. Of course, they never managed to pin anything on him – and after what he'd already done to our family Mum and Dad weren't willing to report him, or to let me report him, for biting me – but they always kept a close eye on him and he didn't like it."

"So it was revenge against your dad?" Kay was looking at me, eyes wide and sad. I sighed and nodded once.

"Oh, Remus."

Without my really being aware of her getting up, she was suddenly in my lap, arms around my neck. I patted her awkwardly on the back, horribly aware that Arthur was still in the room.

Sure enough, Arthur coughed nervously. "I think I should… Molly will…"

"Yes, of course," I said hurriedly, and Kay slid off my lap so that I could rise. "I'll let you out."

I let Arthur out through the shop, so that I could hand him some of the _Just William_ books he had asked for. He tried to pay me but I waved it away, not entirely out of generosity – I felt like I should be upstairs and didn't want any delay.

"Thank you, Remus," he said, looking at the books in his hands, and then up at me. "Listen, I…"

"It doesn't matter." I knew a part of him was regretting asking the question, but I didn't blame him for it.

"Well… Don't let him get to you, Remus."

"I don't."

"No, I know." Arthur's eyes slid to the ceiling for a moment. "And, um… I'm glad. I just wanted to say that."

I smiled the first genuine smile for some time. "So am I, Arthur. So am I."

"Hmm." He glanced once more up at the ceiling again. "Keep hold of her, Remus, won't you?"

"I intend to," I said quietly, but the door slammed shut on the words so I wasn't sure whether he had heard. Although it wasn't really a promise for his ears, anyway.


	19. 26th September, 1983

A part of me had expected that after Greyback's visit, the entire life that Kay and I had built for ourselves in Diagon Alley would crumble instantly. And yet for the next three months, nothing changed. The shop thrived and our peace remained undisturbed.

Towards the end of September, we were inevitably forced to close the shop on a Friday morning, as we were recovering from the effects of full moon. Some months we stayed closed the entire day, depending on how bad the previous night's transformation had been. On that Friday, however, I was awakened by Kay getting up and dressed just before lunch, and stirred myself to follow her lead. I was absent-mindedly rearranging books on the shelves in the shop as she unlocked the door, and looked up sharply when she said my name. "Here, Remus?"

"What's the matter?" Even three months after Greyback had tracked us down, I was constantly on the alert. I had felt as though we were walking on a knife edge, and I think somehow I knew that whatever had confused Kay that afternoon was the beginning of the end.

Or perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, I only now believe that I knew that, and in fact I was merely curious to see what had surprised her.

Kay was examining the outside of the doorframe. "Someone's lost a sickle," she said, and reached up to pull the silver coin out of a crack in the wood.

Quick as lightening, I crossed the shop floor and stayed her hand, peering closely at the little piece of silver. My heart sank.

She knew that something was wrong. "Remus?" I bit my lip at the anxiety in her voice, and wrenched the coin out of the frame. "Lock the door."

She obeyed, then followed me to the counter, where I had dropped the sickle and was surveying it gloomily. She watched me expectantly, awaiting my explanation.

"Did you know," I asked her, still staring at the coin, "That Muggles believe that werewolves are unable to touch silver?"

Kay gave a snort. "What? That's…"

"Ridiculous, I know. They believe it burns our skin, and that the only way to kill a werewolf is with a silver weapon, like a bullet."

"Yeah, well, Muggles think all witches have warts, don't they?" said Kay, trying to be dismissive, but she must have sensed that I was telling her this for a reason. "They'll believe all kinds of rubbish."

"And yet this particular belief does have some basis in fact," I said, carefully lifting the coin and turning it over in my hand.

"Does it." Her voice was becoming more sceptical with every word. "I don't see any burns on your fingers, Remus."

And she was right, of course, but that was hardly the point.

"Traditionally," I explained, aware that I had been dragging out the issue, "Witches and wizards embed a silver sickle in the doorframe of any property believe to be containing a werewolf. It serves as a warning – both to those who visit the building of what lies within, and to the werewolf inside, who knows that his secret has been exposed."

Kay took a step backwards as she understood what I was saying. "So… someone knows?"

"Someone knows."

"But…" She hesitated, clearly thinking hard. "It doesn't matter, does it? I mean, your friend Arthur knows…"

I sighed. "Don't you get it? This isn't a friend, this isn't someone who knows us well enough not to care, this is someone telling us that they think we're dangerous. And letting our customers know into the bargain and believe me, Kay, most of them will care."

She blinked, and I realised I had been too short with her. It wasn't fair to be impatient; she was just trying to hang on to the semblance of stability we had been enjoying until a few moments before. I could hardly blame her, and if I had been a little less bitter I might have joined her.

Instead of saying any of that aloud, I just pulled her into me and wrapped my arms around her. She was stiff at first, but I pressed a kiss onto the top of her head and she softened, leaning her cheek against my chest. We stood there in the middle of our shop, hanging onto each other as if that could help us to hang onto the rest of our lives.

x-x-x-x-x

I almost gave up there and then, and we spent the rest of the day arguing. I wanted to pack our things up and leave that evening, before anything more unpleasant could happen, but Kay was adamant that we weren't going anywhere. "You don't even know that it is the sign you think it is," she said stubbornly, sitting in one of the armchairs with her arms folded and legs crossed, un-budging. "It might have just got stuck in there by accident."

I gaped at her incredulously. "Kay, how do you propose that a coin could have become wedged in our doorpost, four feet above the ground, _by accident?_"

She pulled a face, obviously not wanting to admit that she had no answer to this. "Okay, so maybe it is what you say it is," she conceded reluctantly. "But so what, Remus? It's one customer, one person… How do we know it's not just Greyback trying to scare us?"

I hesitated. That hadn't occurred to me.

"Maybe he's just trying to make us think people know about us so we'll run away and he can get to us again once we're exposed and vulnerable." She jutted out her jaw, and for a moment she looked so much like Lily Evans had looked as she determinedly insisted that she would never, ever go out with James Potter that I found myself lost for words. "We're safe here, Remus, for now at least, and we're not going anywhere."

Thus disarmed, I nodded, and allowed myself to hope that she was right – even though I knew that her stubbornness was probably just as misplaced as Lily's had been, way back then.

x-x-x-x-x

We opened the shop the next morning, and Kay found another sickle, lodged in the same crack in the doorframe. She pulled it out defiantly, cursing Greyback under her breath. She seemed to have convinced herself, during the night, that the other werewolf was behind it all and that we had nothing new to fear.

We found another coin the next morning, and the next, and the next. Each time Kay wrenched it out of the doorframe and dropped it firmly into the till, letting it mix with all the other coins. At first, this disguised the problem – each coin was just that, a coin – but after a while, I began to see all sickles, not just those from the doorpost, as threats. I didn't like them, didn't like the sound they made as customers dropped them onto the counter, didn't like the coldness of them against my fingertips, didn't like watching Kay count them up into little bags and marching them out of the door and up to Gringotts.

We never spoke about the sickles. I think Kay would have tried to hide them from me, but I made a point of being in the shop when she opened the door, so I could watch her tugging them out of the woodwork. She would try not to catch my eye as she walked up the shop to open the till, and I would pretend not to have noticed. Anything to avoid the arguments again.

And then, on the fifth day, I emerged from the back room with a stack of cheap romantic paperbacks (supposedly the work of one Gloria D.R.T. Herlock – hardly the most creative of aliases) and froze when I saw Lucius Malfoy examining the complete works of Cornelius Agrippa.

For a moment I was about to scold Kay for not calling me immediately, but she was absorbed in conversation with another customer, and besides, she had no idea, I realised, that the man currently in our shop was an ex-Death Eater and probably, in his own quiet way, responsible for at least as many deaths as Sirius Black.

I slid the books I was carrying under the counter and waited for Kay's customer to finish up. Malfoy had obviously been waiting for the same thing, for as soon as it was just he and the two of us in the shop, he carelessly dropped the book he had been pretending to look at and swept towards us.

Kay looked up with a casual smile, and something inside me gave a wrench.

Malfoy was rummaging in his robes, and I knew what he was about to produce a moment before he slammed a sickle down on the counter between us.

Kay stared down at the coin, obviously not wanting to have to absorb what she was seeing. Malfoy watched her looking for a moment before his eyes flickered to me. "Well, well, well. Remus Lupin. It's been a long time."

"Not so long as you'd like to pretend, Malfoy," I spat. Officially I hadn't seen Malfoy since he left Hogwarts at the end of our first year, but the Order had come across him many times. He had managed to convince the Ministry that he had been imperiused, and a lot of money had exchanged hands – but I wasn't buying a word of it.

"If you are referring to any unfortunate incidents which may have occurred while I was not in my right mind, Remus – well, it would be a little _hypocritical_ for you, of all people, to dwell on those things done when one is not quite oneself."

I tensed, knowing instantly that Malfoy was referring to one incident in particular. Of course, Snape would have told him what had happened. They were old friends, vile, greasy snakes together.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" I snarled, not wanting this encounter to go on any longer than was necessary. I knew that he was bringing bad news, and it would be better to get it over with than to endure the other man's lingering taunts.

"My, my, Remus, are you this unfriendly with all of your customers? It's a wonder no one's noticed that _nasty temper _of yours."

I gripped the side of the counter hard, my knuckles whitening. "If you're here to buy a book then go ahead, Malfoy, I won't stop you."

"Oh, believe me," Malfoy drawled, eyeing me up and down, "I take no offense from anything you or your little may try to throw at me…"

A moment later, Malfoy was forced to duck as a stapler flew passed his ear. Kay had apparently taken the challenge literally, and she was rounding the counter so that there was nothing between her and Malfoy. I felt that I ought to stop her but I was frozen to the spot.

"Have you been leaving sickles in our doorpost?" she demanded, as Malfoy backed away, trying hard to look unruffled, but with a slight pink flush giving him away.

"I consider it my duty to my fellow wizards…" he began, then ducked again as Kay snatched a book up off the nearest shelf and hurled it at him. He staggered backwards into another shelf and had to raise his arms to shield himself as hefty volumes cascaded around him.

"To ruin lives wherever you go?" Kay spat, and she was too close to throw things now so she stood over him, watching the bruises spring up on his vampiric skin as hardbacks clattered around his head. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

He sneered at her from the floor, and grabbed hold of the bookshelf, pulling himself to his feet. "Dear, dear, Remus, you haven't educated the little bitch on the important names in our world? How lacking."

Under any other circumstances, his attempts to maintain his dignity no matter what the world, or rather Kay, threw at him would have been laughable, but I could find nothing funny about the situation. "I felt that there were more important things," I hissed as he smoothed out his robes.

"Did you, Remus. Did you."

And then the door clattered open and my world began spinning again.

Narcissa Black, Sirius' cousin, strode into the shop, tugging a small blond boy who could only be Malfoy's son behind her. "What on earth is going on in here?"

Kay spun on the spot to face the intruder and I steadied myself against the wall. Of all Sirius' cousins, Narcissa was the one who looked least like him – but there was still a resemblance, the same haughty look and long nose, the same high cheekbones, the same grey eyes. Though I had never seen such coldness in Sirius' eyes as was radiating from Narcissa's now.

"Unhand my husband," Narcissa said to Kay, who took a step back, more out of surprise, I think, than anything. Malfoy sneered as she retreated. "Good dog."

I don't know who moved for his throat first, me or Kay, but neither of us got very far before Narcissa shrieked "Protego!"

The force of the spell knocked both Kay and I backwards off our feet, and she landed painfully against the counter as I was pushed into the wall. On the other side of the shield, Malfoy straightened his robes again. "Well done, Narcissa."

She made a strange guttural noise that wasn't a million miles away from the growl Sirius used to make in the back of his throat and, still holding her wand aloft with one hand to maintain the spell, bent to lift her son into her arms. "Stay away from my family," she spat, as the little boy clung to her, and gestured with her head for her husband to leave the shop. He obeyed languidly, and she backed out after him, her son burying his face into her shoulder. As they left, I felt a pang of pity for the child. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it must be like to be raised in such a toxic environment.

Then I looked at the chaos around me and my heart hardened. Somehow it was hard to feel sorry for a child whose parents had just destroyed my shop.

Kay hurried to lock the door and together we began the clear up. Neither of us talked about what had just happened, but I knew that it would only be a matter of time before we had to face up to the fact that the walls were closing in on us. For now, though, we were each absorbed in our own thoughts - and I would be lying if I had to pretend that a good deal of mine were not occupied with the similarities between Narcissa and her younger cousin.

* * *

**AN: I'm not going to lie, part of this chapter was inspired by wanting to show how much more badass Narcissa is than her husband... I may have been rooting for her here, just a little bit.**

**Also, cybercookies for anyone who can be bothered to work out Gloria D.R.T. Herlock's real name... It's not a particularly difficult one.**


	20. 23rd December, 1983

**AN: I'm sorry it's been longer than usual since the last update - I've been ill, a little feverish and slightly delirious, which has been highly entertaining for anyone who's attempted to talk to me but wasn't exactly conducive to good writing. Anyway, on the mend now, so I bring you the latest instalment of angst. Enjoy...**

* * *

In the months after the encounter with the Malfoys, we noticed a severe drop in custom. At first it was barely noticeable, and could have been put down to any number of factors: poor weather meant people were less likely to be out shopping; Hogwarts' term started, so there were no children left to stock up on the latest of _Lamia Strages, The Teenage Vampire_'s adventures; a new second-hand bookstore opened up across the street. But soon enough, numbers of customers were dropping rapidly, and although we never said so aloud, both Kay and I were forced to accept that people were afraid of us.

My suspicions were confirmed just before Hallowe'en, when out shopping for groceries. I was picking up vegetables when I bumped into Julia Bones, Amelia's sister, with her daughter in tow. Julia had been something of a regular in the shop, but I hadn't seen her now for several weeks.

"Hi," I greeted her casually, reaching passed her to pick up some carrots, and her eyes widened when she saw me. Her hand reached for her little girl, and she pulled the child to her, still eying me nervously.

I pretended not to have noticed, tried not to admit to myself that I knew what was upsetting her. "How are you?" I asked, straightening up and dropping the carrots into my basket.

She forced a thin smile. "Oh, well, you know…"

"It feels like a while since we saw you." Why was I pushing this? I knew full well that I didn't want to hear whatever she was about to say in response.

"Yes, well, been busy… Keep meaning to pop in…"

"No, no, we understand." I made myself smile at her, and resolved to leave her be before my presence sent her into a real panic. I turned to walk away, but I felt a hand on my arm.

As I turned back to look at her, she snatched her hand back, staring at it aghast, as though it had acted of its own accord. I sensed, or maybe it was my paranoid imagination, that she was resisting the urge to wipe it on her coat, as though lycanthropy could be transmitted as easily as with a touch of skin.

"Remus, I…"

"Yes?" I didn't mean to sound impatient, but I suspect that I did anyway. After all, it was bad enough that she was treating me like an aggressive plague victim, without her dragging out the encounter any longer than was necessary.

"There… There are awful rumours, Remus."

"Are there." It wasn't a question. I had known for a long time, without having to hear them for myself, that there were rumours; and of course, I knew that they were true.

"Lucius Malfoy…"

"Ah."

"But he's just stirring, isn't he, Remus?" Her eyes were wide, pleading. She wanted to hear me say that it was nonsense, dismiss the rumours, reassure her that she had never put herself or her child in the vicinity of… _someone like that._

But I had never outright denied my condition before. My personal brand of deception lay in half-truths and cover-ups, in silences and evasion. Here she was, asking me outright – or at least in code – whether I was a werewolf, and I couldn't lie to her. I couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear, because concealing my true identity was one thing, but to deny it completely…

_"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Remus,_" my mum had always said. _"It's just who you are, and who you are is never something to be ashamed of."_

Denying it would be like admitting I was ashamed.

And I was ashamed, but I was ashamed to admit to being ashamed.

"I don't know what Malfoy thinks he's doing," I said heavily. Not the outright denial she wanted, nothing that would quell the rumours, but not confirmation either. "Excuse me, I just remembered I need to get back for something."

The excuse was lame, but I felt too tired and heavy to come up with anything better, so I swept passed her, paid for my goods, and left, hurrying back down the Alley to where the only person left who knew what I was and didn't care was waiting for me.

x-x-x-x-x

My conversation with Julia did not improve matters, not that I had expected it too. I didn't tell Kay what had transpired. I didn't want to upset her. I knew I wouldn't be able to protect her from the atmosphere outside the shop for long – I was not foolish enough to think she hadn't already sensed it – but for as long as we could avoid talking about it, we could pretend that our little safe haven would remain safe forever.

We still had some stalwart regulars. Of course, Arthur had always known the truth anyway, so he still came in several times a week, but he would rarely buy anything – he had a modest job and seven children, after all, so there wasn't much spare to spend on books. Augusta Longbottom if anything increased her visits, telling me imperiously "There's nothing wrong with bearing a few scars." I took this as a tacit acknowledgement that she had heard and perhaps even believed the rumours, but didn't care. I never plucked up the courage to ask after Frank and Alice, but I couldn't help imagining that Augusta had seen too much lasting damage in her family to judge when she saw it in others.

Unfortunately, our supporters were too few to make any real difference. We could go entire mornings without seeing a single person. On one particularly memorable day, our only visitor was Gilderoy Lockhart, who sidled in to warn us that he had been approached several times now over the "Werebook Controversy," and that if forced to take action he could make matters exceedingly unpleasant for us. He presented me with a copy of _Wanderings with Werewolves_ as though to prove his point, but rather spoiled the effect when he offered to sign it for me. I remembered Gilderoy from a few years above me at school, and whatever his books might have said I very much doubted he would have been capable of vanquishing a fly, much less a werewolf, so I just politely reminded him that ours was the only store still stocking his (or, sorry, _Gloria's_) terrible romance novels and he left in a hurry.

Not everyone was going to be so easily put off, however, and eventually matters came to a head just before Christmas.

It hadn't exactly been the most successful of holidays. Hardly anyone would come near our shop any more, and to make matters worse we had been forced, by a particularly bad full moon, to close the shop all day on the 20th, one of the last shopping days before Christmas when perhaps certain wizards, realising they had so far forgotten to buy their girlfriends presents, would have decided that facing a couple of werewolves would be the less frightening option.

As it was, the place had been so deserted after the last full moon that when we shut up the night before Christmas Eve, I somehow knew that if we opened up again at all after the holiday, it wouldn't be for very long.

So I wasn't particularly surprised when I heard a jingling noise that indicated we had a visitor. I was busy cooking, so Kay set aside her book (I think she had read most of our stock over the past year) and went downstairs, returning a minute later with Douglas in tow.

"Hi, Douglas." My cooking hadn't improved much, and the sizzling pan on the hob was taking up most of my attention. Even so, I sensed rather than saw his apologetic expression, and his awkward smile. "Hello, Remus."

I hurriedly drained the already over-boiled pasta before the pan could overflow any more, and tipped it out onto a couple of plates. "Have you eaten?"

"Oh, er… Yes, I have, thank you." I wasn't sure whether he was refusing the food because he didn't want to have to face an awkward meal, or just because the charred bolognaise sauce in the frying pan looked so unappetising, but either way, I made no attempt to change his mind. Kay walked round the table to collect her plate from me and sank into one of the dining chairs, chewing slowly and watching Douglas with a scrutinising expression on her face. I hopped up onto the worktop and held the plate in my hand to eat, still facing Douglas.

"So." I didn't see much point beating around the bush.

Douglas, however, looked as though he would give anything to put off this encounter. "Er… yes. So." He then stared out of the window for almost a full minute before speaking again. "I, er… I've had complaints, Remus."

I didn't say anything.

"Well. Not complaints as such. Threats."

Kay looked up sharply.

"Some of them were a little… Well, to be frank, Remus, more than one person has threatened to do rather unpleasant things to my family if I continue… I mean if you…"

I sighed, and set aside my plate of barely-touched food. Somehow I just didn't feel hungry any more.

"I just… I mean, you know I have every sympathy with your position Remus – and yours, Kay – but I can't… I mean… I have two children, Remus."

He was gazing at me, wide-eyed, begging me to understand. I nodded dully. "You didn't offer us this job out of charity, Douglas. You needed a shop running. I think it's quite obvious that Kay and I can't fulfil that role anymore."

"It's not a question of your competence…" Douglas began, but I cut over him impatiently. "We know, Douglas. You don't have to explain."

I felt a twinge of guilt as his face fell. Of course none of this was his fault, he was only doing what he had to do, and he clearly felt terrible about it. All the same, I couldn't bring myself to feel much sympathy; it was my world that was falling apart, not his.

Douglas looked at me and I looked at him, and I think he must have read something of what I was thinking in my face, because it was only a matter of moments before he stood up. "I've got someone new taking over in the middle of next month," he said, trying to keep his voice light. "Andromeda Tonks, she said she knew you?"

I blinked at him, hard. Dromeda – another of Sirius' cousins, the third sister of Narcissa and Bellatrix. She had always been the decent one, though. She was probably the only Black who was ashamed of where Sirius had ended up.

"Anyway, you can stay here until then, so that you can find a new place," said Douglas, moving for the door. "I… I'm sorry, Remus."

I looked at him, and something in my stomach gave a tug that made me force out a small smile. "So am I, Douglas."

He gave a small nod, and let himself out.

Kay pushed her plate away from her. I knew full well that she hadn't eaten a bite, had just pushed the food around with her fork to create the illusion of eating. And for once, it wasn't because of my cooking.

"So that's it then."

"Yep." Such an inadequate word, but there really was nothing else to say.

"Right." We both stared gloomily into the middle distance for a few minutes, unable to bring ourselves to say anything more.

"So what next?" It was she who asked. I gave a small start. I had had to ask myself that before – and the last time, I had ended up in a forest in Scotland – but when I had wondered before, there had only ever been me to worry about. Now, there was _us_.

"I suppose we'll have to find somewhere else to stay," she went on, frowning down at her nails. She picked at a hangnail on her right hand and I watched, strangely mesmerised. "I suppose we will."

She looked up at me. "It is still we, then?"

I gaped at her in surprise. "Do you really have to ask?"

She shrugged. "I didn't want to assume…"

I jumped down from the countertop and crossed the room, pulling her up out of her chair. "Kay, why would this change anything?" I knew I was gripping her shoulders too tightly, but I couldn't stop myself as I stared, aghast, into her face. "Is it not abundantly obvious that we're in this together?"

She was staring at me searchingly, chewing on her bottom lip. "We just… We never talked about…"

I kissed her roughly, not wanting to hear her remind me that there was so much I had never said. "I didn't think we had to," I growled into her mouth, and I felt her give a little gasp, warm air billowing against my lips. Her arms entwined around my neck, and I laid my hands on her hips, pulling her into me. I backed up to the bedroom door, still holding her pressed tightly against me, and kicked it open, dragging her into our room.

I didn't know where we would be sleeping the next night, or the night after that, or any other night in whatever might be left of our miserable little lives. But I knew that wherever it was, it would be together, and I might never have said it before, and I didn't say it then either, but as always I trusted that she would feel how tightly I clung to her and hear all the words I couldn't quite say out loud.


	21. 1st January, 1984

For the next week, Kay and I looked half-heartedly for a new place to live. Every morning I would find her pouring over advertisements in the _Prophet,_ but for all my scrupulous saving I knew that unless one or both of us found a new job, and fast, we would never be able to afford the rents. I had resigned myself to the fact that we would have to leave London. I knew from experience that there were numerous deserted houses on the outskirts of Muggle villages which, with some concealment charms, would make a safe, if not particularly pleasant, home for two werewolves. I had done it before; James had insisted on intervening and supporting me, despite my proud protestations, after finding me squatting in a rundown cottage somewhere in East Anglia.

I kept trying to hint at this solution to Kay, but she only pulled a face and began re-examining the pages of the newspaper, even though she knew as well as I did that nothing was going to magically appear there.

Or perhaps I was wrong. In the end it was not the _Prophet_ that provided us with a new home, but the information would all have been in there had we not been looking in the wrong section.

In fact, the answer arrived in a somewhat unexpected form, a week after Douglas had delivered our marching orders. Kay and I were munching on a grimly silent breakfast – it was hard, when so anxious, to make relaxed conversation, and we were passing whole hours without saying a word to one another – when someone knocked at the door downstairs. Not the shop door; the back entrance to the flat.

Kay pushed her cereal aside and went downstairs, as I began to clear up the breakfast things. We didn't speak, still, just exchanged a look that confirmed that we were both thinking the same thing: _This is probably not good._

When Kay emerged a moment later, leading behind her a woman I distantly recognised, I had to grip onto the table-top to steady myself.

Of all of Sirius' cousins, Bellatrix had probably looked the most like him, but Dromeda looked remarkably like both of them, far more than she did Narcissa. Her hair was lighter than Sirius', and her features a little softer, but of course she had the eyes. The grey Black eyes, the eyes they all shared and that filled me with such a confused mixture of pain, anger, and longing.

"Come to gloat, Andromeda?" Of course I knew that she hadn't, and I scolded myself instantly for the words. Dromeda had always been the "good" Black. Yes she had been in Slytherin, but she had married a Muggle-born, and had always encouraged Sirius, six years her junior, to treat Muggle-borns and half-bloods with at least a little respect.

In fact, Dromeda was probably the only Black who has been ashamed rather than delighted when she found out what Sirius had become.

The "nice" Black Dromeda might be, but the haughty disdain in her face when she turned to me made her resemble Bellatrix far more than she usually did. "As a matter of fact, Lupin, I've come here to do you a favour, so show some respect."

I bit my lip. Being snarled at whilst staring into those grey eyes was so familiar – Sirius had had a temper on him, no one could have denied that – and yet so surprising, when I had imagined I would never have to look into them again. Even so, I made myself hold eye contact as I nodded once, a gesture of apology.

She gathered herself, still looking unimpressed, but when she spoke, her voice had lost its cold edge. Her eyes lingered on the open copy of the _Prophet_ on the table between us, and said, "I wonder, Remus, whether you have been reading the obituaries of late."

_Dear Merlin,_ I thought to myself, _Who now?"_ I genuinely couldn't think of anyone, except perhaps Dumbledore (and if he had died, it would have been the front page), whose death could affect me very much, now – the only person I really cared about was with me in that room, very much alive.

"I see not," said Dromeda, her lips curling in a slight smile. "If you did, I daresay you would have commiserated me upon the loss of dear Aunt Walburga."

I blinked steadily at her. Sirius' mother was dead?

"Of course, Uncle Orion relieved us of his presence a few years ago now… And with all due respect to the Noble and most Ancient House of Black, I cannot pretend to feel much of a loss for either of them…" Dromeda was staring at me as though I was supposed to be having some sort of revelation, but all I felt was numb confusion. I distantly remembered flashes of Sirius' parents from spotting them at King's Cross, and remembered far more clearly Sirius' stories, his hatred, anger, and misery, and the aftermath of his disownment, which had upset him far more than he had ever been willing to let on. No, I could not be sorry that they were gone: even though Sirius himself had been far from innocent, in the end, I could not help thinking that had his parents been a little less – well, insanely evil – he might not have done what he did, might not have been what he became.

"And of course, the house – 12 Grimmauld Place, I doubt you ever visited" – I shook my head – "Goes to the one remaining male heir."

I did some quick calculations. Dromeda had only sisters. Regulus, Sirius' brother, was long dead.

"Sirius?"

"Indeed."

"But he's in Azkaban."

"Which means, of course, that there is now a house standing empty in central London, which seems to me an atrocious waste."

I stared at her. Was she suggesting what I thought she was suggesting?

Her face softened, and now I saw in her eyes the look that only I and a select few others had ever seen in Sirius'. The look that put up no show, that told you that he didn't care what you thought anymore, than he was speaking with sincerity and care.

Such a deceitful look, it had turned out.

"Remus, I know what my cousin did to you." I looked up at her, swallowing hard – dear Merlin, you never once shed a tear over him, Remus, why now? "He murdered your three best friends, and the world knows that, and punished him for it, but no one has ever reproached him for tearing your whole life apart." I found myself gripping the table edge again for support. "I think this is the least he can do to make amends, isn't it?" I looked away, not wanting her to see the look on my face, and focused very hard on the table top. Moments later, something fell onto it. "No one ever thought to take this off me, after good old Aunt Walburga blasted me off the family tree," said Dromeda in a low voice, and I realised that the object was a key. "We all had them. Just to warn you, I think Cissy does still. Bella too, though she'll find it something of a struggle to get to you."

I remembered that Bellatrix was in prison, and I remembered why. And I remembered all the pain and evil that had come out of the House of Black and I found myself shaking my head. "Dromeda, I can't…"

"Yes, you can," she snapped, and her voice was suddenly cold and business-like again. "And you will, Remus, because you know as well as I do that it's the only half-decent option that you're going to find for you and your little girlfriend."

Kay. I remembered with a jolt that she had been listening in silence to the whole exchange, and I looked up at her now, to see that she was watching me steadily with a little frown on her face. "Sirius' house?"

I nodded slowly. She would understand, better than Dromeda, why the idea would not appeal.

But she just shrugged. "It's a roof, Remus."

A roof. That it was.

"Well, then." Dromeda straightened herself, and made for the door. "I will be checking to see that you've moved in, Remus."

I held in a sigh. It seemed that once you let one woman into your life, they'd all flood in, making all your decisions for you.

Not that I'd have given up Kay or let her down, not for all the world, but _Sirius' old house,_ for goodness' sake.

x-x-x-x-x

_Sirius was waiting for me on the bed._

_I had lost Kay somewhere between the living room and the bedroom, somewhere along that long corridor with all the Black family bedrooms lining the walls. I had passed Sirius' locked door with clenched jaw, hesitated looking at the sign bearing Regulus' initials, and finally arrived at the guest bedroom, where the memories were least likely to be waiting._

_He looked so out of place among the green and silver hangings on the great four-poster, his dark hair cascading around his shoulders. Azkaban had not aged him a day, at least not in my mind._

_"What are you doing here?" I demanded from the doorway, but he just laughed and slid gracefully off the bed. He was barefoot as he padded across the room and reached for me._

_I took half a step back, but his hand caught my elbow and before I knew what was happening he had pulled me towards him, and for the first time in so long I felt his mouth against mine. He was back to his old, rough, playful self, and I felt his teeth bite down on my bottom lip. I gave a small moan and his arm wrapped around me, his palm flat against the small of my back, pulling me closer to him. I could feel every inch of him pressing against me, and it was so familiar and yet so unwelcome that I yelped when his mouth left mine to nip roughly at my neck._

I awoke still yelping, and Kay rolled over sleepily. "Remus?"

I stared blankly up at the hangings of the four-poster in the Blacks' spare bedroom. Kay and I had moved our things, such as they were, into 12 Grimmauld Place that very day. Walburga Black's demise had been so recent that there had barely been time for a single layer of dust to settle over the family home, so unpleasantly pureblood as the place was, it was at least inhabitable.

Kay had seen my expression and sat up, leaning against the pillow. "Remus? What's the matter."

"It's this house," I mumbled unintelligibly, still staring fixedly straight above me. "The house."

"What's the house?" I glanced momentarily at her, just long enough to see her eyes narrowing, and before I could stop her she was reaching down under the duvet to feel my arousal.

She emerged slowly from under the covers, and her expression was unbearably reproachful. "Sirius?"

"He…" I struggled over the words, forced myself not to relive the imagined yet so familiar taste of his lips, the firmness of his grip. "It's this house," I repeated lamely, and I gazed at her, begging her to understand that I had no more control over this than I did over the wolf, and to forgive yet another defect in me, yet another sign of the permanent damage life had inflicted on me over the years.

She fell back against the pillow staring hopelessly up at the hangings. I too returned my eyes to there, although I don't know what either of us expected to see.

"I suppose it was inevitable," she said quietly, miserably. "He must have spent so much time here, he's still here in a way…"

Of course I knew full well that the Sirius I had known would have chosen anywhere to haunt but this place where he had been so miserable, but then the Sirius in my dreams was not the Sirius I had known. Nor was the real Sirius, in fact; the Sirius I had thought I knew was long gone, so who knew who or what I had found waiting for me in this house?

"Kay…" I knew that I had to say something, but the words just weren't there. She sighed heavily, and I looked over to see that she had closed her eyes.

I couldn't let her go to sleep, not without saying or doing something that would make this better. As ever words continued to fail me, so as ever I resorted instead to what I knew, and rolled over to kiss her on the cheek.

For a moment she didn't respond, and I wondered if she had fallen back to sleep or was only pretending, when her head tilted and her lips, softer and warmer than Sirius' had ever been, were against mine. I lifted myself up onto my elbows, positioning myself above her, and she didn't open her eyes as we lapped desperately from each other, as I tried to wash the taste of Sirius out of my mouth with her kisses.

* * *

**AN: I've never really liked Dromeda. I know she was the "good" Black, and she always did the right thing and even withstood torture for the Order, but I still always imagined her as a bit cold, somehow. I think Tonks probably took after her father.**

**Also, I know that the Black family tree says that Walburga died in '85, but I needed her gone so apologies for going slightly off-canon there.**

**The next update won't be for about ten days, I'm afraid, as I'm going away without my laptop again, but thanks to everyone who's still reading and being so patient with my sometimes sporadic updates...**


	22. 20th January, 1984

**AN: Sorry again that it's been so long for the update! The good news is that I'm going to be at home for about eight weeks now, so hopefully updates should be more frequent during that time.**

**Also, I am aware that the current updates are particularly angsty and not very plot-driven. It's sort of necessary for the overall plot but let me just reassure you that there will be adventures and action and possibly even a few dragons coming up later. Just a wee incentive for you to stick with Remus during this especially miserable episode in his life...**

* * *

Once they had started, the dreams of Sirius would not stop. I tried my best to hide them from Kay, but it was difficult, when sharing a bed with her, not to let her notice their uncontrollable effects. The only way of hiding it would have been to move to a different room; and it would have been so obvious why I was doing so that it would rather defeat the point.

For the first few days, I was subjected every morning to the hurt look in her eyes as I awoke, gasping and sticky. But once she had realised that this was to be the new state of affairs, she was careful always to either be up and dressed before I stirred, or else to pretend to be asleep as I cleaned up the mess. I knew her too well to be fooled by the pretence, but I could not blame her – indeed, I was grateful.

All this is not to say that I did not feel immensely guilty. I understood how bewildering it must be for her to realise that however much I might care for her awake, as I slept another came and took her place. She tried to pretend that she wasn't thinking about it, that she didn't mind, that it she knew it was just something I couldn't help and that she could ignore. But as time went on, she drew a little colder. Our long days spent rattling around that house passed primarily in silence.

One thing which we came to be thankful of was that the Blacks had an unusually large cellar. By the looks of it, in recent years it had been used primarily for storing wine, though it was uncomfortably easy to imagine that it might once have been used for less tasteful purposes. One thing I was pretty certain of, however, was that it had never before been used as a safe place for two werewolves to transform.

I had been apprehensive about that transformation. For all that Kay and I were avoiding any confrontation, I could not be sure that the tension undercutting our current existence wouldn't spill out when the wolves took over. In the event, however, I needn't have worried. I suppose that the emotions we were feeling were too complex for the wolves to understand. Jealousy and dreams were such alien concepts to us in that state that although there was some initial aggression, probably inspired by the new surroundings more than anything else, that transformation was no more painful than they ever were when Kay and I were together.

If the full moon was uneventful, however, our relief was short-lived. Two days later, Kay had gone out to Diagon Alley to pick up some groceries (she had never got the hang of Muggle supermarkets) and I was alone in the house. I was sitting in the immense kitchen, which I had always found the most comfortable room in the house. I somehow suspected that the kitchen had been the domain of house elves and that none of the Blacks, Sirius included, had ever spent much time in there. As such, it was less haunted for me than the rest of the house.

Unfortunately, the absence of ghosts was rendered less comforting by the kitchen's one regular resident. It had taken me a couple of days to realise that not all of the house elves had deserted the house when they realised there was no master left for them here. I had assumed that they had all (for a house this large and a family that rich, there must have been at least half a dozen) gone to seek work elsewhere, but as it turned out, one was so devoted to the Black family that it had set up camp in the kitchen. The sorry creature had clearly inherited its family's political leanings. Quite how it had known what Kay and I were I never knew, but it took one look at us and began croaking about half-breeds. All my attempts to speak to it had fallen on deaf ears, and I never even discovered its name.

As I read the _Prophet_ at the kitchen table that morning, the damned creature was sitting in the corner, polishing knives. It was obsessive about keeping anything with the Black family crest on it clean, but I couldn't help noticing that it was particularly attentive to the cutlery and the knives especially. I supposed that I was supposed to see this as some kind of threat, but there is a limit to how much damage a house elf can do with a butter knife, so it never bothered me unduly.

The constant stream of curses and insults issued under the blasted thing's breath was a little more irritating, and after a while I decided I had had enough. Leaving the newspaper at the table, I got up and wandered out into the rest of the house.

I stood in the hallway, considering my next move. There was nowhere in the house that I had any desire to explore any further than I already had, but I couldn't stay where I was; I hardly dared breath for fear of disturbing the particularly vocal portrait of Sirius' mother than hung behind a set of drawn curtains. Once she started shrieking it was very difficult to shut her up, and I preferred not to have to face her if I could avoid it.

I was disturbed by a noise on the front doorstep. Were it not for my wolfish hearing, heightened even when in human form, I probably would not have noticed it; the sound of footsteps on the stairs leading up to the door.

My mind began racing. Instinct told me that this wasn't Kay. The house was invisible to Muggles, so my mystery visitor was obviously a wizard. But whoever it was did not take out a key, and nor did they knock at the door. After a long hesitation, I approached the door, and peered out through the glass panel set into it.

There was no shadow or silhouette. Unless whoever it was were crouching on the doorstep, therefore, they hadn't stayed.

Of course, I could no dismiss the possibility that someone was lying in wait out of sight, so I drew my wand before opening the door. There was no one in sight. I peered around the square and saw no one. Perhaps whoever it was had disapparated as soon as they reached the bottom step, though I hadn't heard the usual popping sound.

Every instinct in me was screaming at me. So far as I was aware, no one knew that Kay and I were there, apart from Dromeda. Dromeda had no reason to skulk around – she would always have been a welcome visitor. I was forced to the unwelcome conclusion that this visitor was probably a hostile one.

My conclusion was confirmed as I turned to go back into the house, and my eye was caught by a flash of light reflected of something shiny caught in the doorframe.

With a heavy heart, I reached out and pulled the sickle out of a crack in the wood. Turning it over in my hand, I found myself searching the marks on its surface as though for clues. Inevitably, however, all there was to see was the date and manufacture number, etched around the rim; nothing to tell me who had planted it on our property.

After some hesitation, I pocketed it. I was sure of one thing; I couldn't leave it lying around for Kay to find. Perhaps I would be able to find out for myself who the mysterious visitor was, and pay him off or otherwise convince him (or her – for perhaps Narcissa Malfoy, as the only person who had a key to the house, was the most likely candidate) to leave us alone. Perhaps there was no need for Kay to ever find out about this.

Or perhaps there was no way around the issue – perhaps we would have to move on already. And I thought of the portrait of Walburga Black, and the vile house elf in the kitchen, and the ghosts of Sirius that plagued me every night, and reflected that perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

x-x-x-x-x

All thoughts of the sickle in the doorpost were temporarily driven from my mind when Kay arrived home, and I realised as I held the door open for her that there was blood in her hair.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but my first assumption was that the blood was someone else's. Kay was impulsive sometimes and defensive always, and I had no doubt that if anyone in Diagon Alley had confronted her about the rumours surrounding our sudden departure, she would respond with as much force as the situation required. If she had run into Malfoy, I would have bet anything that she would have flown at him with everything she had.

But who was I to make such an assumption? I, who had been the subject of terror among so many for so long? I knew what other people thought when they looked at me, knowing what I was; how could I imagine the same of Kay, when I knew that for all her temper, she was no more violent than I was?

All this crossed my mind in a split second, and was soon supplanted by the recognition of an ugly cut running down the left side of her face. As soon as I saw it I gave a yelp, and of course that stirred Mrs Black into a frenzy. Usually we would have fought to subdue her, but in the circumstances I wasn't particularly interested; I pulled Kay passed Sirius' screaming mother and into the kitchen.

The house elf, which was sitting crossed legged on the table examining the toasting fork with a wicked glint in its eye, looked up as we entered, and a look of pure joy crossed its ugly face. "The half breeds have got what they deserved… Perhaps they will leave now, disgusting werewolf filth…"

I reached into one of the shopping bags and pulled out a cabbage, which I threw at the abominable thing. It made a hissing noise like a cat and scuttled out of the room as I sat Kay down at the kitchen table and rummaged for my wand. Wishing I had some dittany, I cleaned up the wound as best I could as she sat, impassive, watching me move frantically around her.

"What happened?" I asked her, as soon as I had satisfied myself that the cut was no longer bleeding. I was surprised by how low and hoarse my voice had become in my worry – a trait that my school friends had always teased me about.

She shrugged, avoiding my eye. "Got jumped on in Diagon Alley."

I gave a cursory glance over her things. So far as I could see, her attackers had not taken so much as a shopping bag full of vegetables; this was clearly no random mugging. "Who?" I demanded.

She shrugged again. "Didn't see their faces."

"They? How many? Male or female? How big? Was it Greyback? Malfoy?" I knew I was firing too many questions at her too quickly, and realised too that I was pacing backwards in front of her, restless in my agitation.

She buried her face in her hands. "I don't know… Three. Men, I think. Didn't see faces. All bigger than me, but that's not saying much…"

_No, it bloody isn't_, I thought. Kay was so _small_ – how could anyone think it fair game to attack her?

"Did they say anything?"

"No." She looked up, straight at me, and lifted a hand to her throat. "But one of them gave me this."

I was so sure that she was going to pull down her collar to reveal another cut, even worse than the other, that it was almost a relief when, instead, she pulled out a silver chain, onto which a single silver sickle had been threated. The motive of the attack was now confirmed, but for now, I was just pleased that her injuries had not been worse than they were.

I knelt down in front of her, taking both of her hands in mine. "I'll find them, Kay. I swear on anything and everything that I _will_ find them, and when I do…"

But she was shaking her head. "Remus, you don't understand. It was three people today, tomorrow it could be a different three… We're not _safe_ anymore, Remus."

I heard her words, but couldn't bring myself to face up to the truth in them. "So we can't go back to Diagon Alley for a bit," I said stubbornly. "Just avoid the wizarding world for a while, that's okay. We'll go to Muggle shops, I'll go and change all our savings to Muggle money and put them in a Muggle bank…" _Oh will you?_ said a snide voice in my head. _Good luck with that, you never understood banking at the best of times, and it's much more complicated in the Muggle world._

She was shaking her head again. "Remus, I don't… I don't _want_ to have to be an outcast, Remus." She sounded as though she was about to cry. "I don't _want_ to have to stay away, I don't _want_ to have to hide, I just… I want it all to stop, Remus."

I looked at her and she looked at me. I let my lips tighten into a determined grimace that I'm sure didn't fool her for a second. "Okay," I said quietly. "But right now… There's nothing we can do, Kay. But we're safe here, so let's just… wait. Things will get better eventually."

As I spoke, I could almost feel the sickle from the doorframe burning through my pocket, scalding me on the top of the leg. Even in that house, that thrice damned house, we weren't safe. But how could I tell her that, now? And as for things getting better… When had life ever given me a reason to believe that?

She looked at me almost pityingly, as though she couldn't believe I was even trying to convince myself that what I was saying was true. I forced a smile, and before I knew it her mouth was on mine.

I kissed her back, furiously, and my hands ran up her arms to her shoulders, gripping onto them so tightly that I must have hurt her, but she didn't say a word. Indeed, I could feel her nails digging sharply into my own arms in retaliation.

As I pulled her to her feet, she drew back for a moment, by less than an inch. "Never, ever leave me," she demanded, her voice rough as though she was fighting back tears again.

That was it. The one and only time she ever asked me for some sort of assurance. We had barely ever even talked about our relationship or our commitment or our futures together, and never before and never since did she ever ask me to make any promise to stay with her.

And I, swept away on a tide of anger and protectiveness, gave it. "I promise," I whispered into her mouth, and reclaimed it with my own.


	23. 12th February, 1984

**Hello, dear readers! I am so sorry that you've had to wait so long for this. As a general rule I try to ignore real life (nothing good can come of it), but it sort of blew up in my face and Remus and Kay had to take a back seat as I went off to deal with it. Updates may be a little sporadic for a while depending on how things work out (sorry, I know I'm being very mysterious!) but I do at least promise that they will continue, however slowly.**

**Also, I expect most of you will know by now that JKR has posted a bio for Remus on Pottermore, which is fantastic (naturally), but sadly not entirely compatible with the story I had planned to tell you. I'm going to try to adapt my plan where possible to fit in with the new information, but it might not always be possible/I might decide that I prefer my version for the purposes of the story. Hope no one minds that, it doesn't mean that I don't love and fully accept as canon the new bio.**

**Anyway, enough from me, back to Remus.**

* * *

In the weeks following Kay's attack, she didn't leave the house. Not that she didn't want to; she was quite determined, once the initial shock had worn off, to go back to Diagon Alley, to defiantly prove that she would not be so easily intimidated. But I, paranoid, over-protective fool that I am, wouldn't let her. Her injuries had hardly been severe, but I could not put it to trust that they would not be worse next time. I was never in any doubt that there would be a next time.

The dreams of Sirius had stopped. Ordinarily I would have been relieved and delighted, but they were replaced instead by blood-filled visions of Kay, staggering through my subconscious in obvious pain and fear. Every night I watched paralysed as shadowy figures, sometimes faceless, sometimes recognisable – the Malfoys, Greyback, Samec, old otherwise friendly customers, even Arthur Weasley or Douglas Abbott – attacked in increasingly violent and inventive ways, and I was powerless to offer any help at all. I wasn't bound, wasn't under threat myself – I was just unable to move.

Kay noticed that the nature of my dreams had changed somewhat, and forced me to tell her what I was now seeing whenever I closed my eyes. She seemed oddly cheerful when I explained; I suppose dreaming about her must, in her mind, have been better than dreaming about Sirius, whatever the circumstances.

Otherwise, she didn't smile much anymore. I won't say she was miserable – restless was perhaps more the word. She certainly grew increasingly irritated with my stance on her leaving the house. We fought, frequently, and every time I set off out (something I tried not to do too often, but we had to get food somehow) I could see resentment in her face. I saw it, but I set it to the back of my mind.

I don't know how long I thought that situation could go on for. Kay and I were both young – I was approaching my twenty-fourth birthday, she her twentieth – and, hopefully, had many years ahead of us. I could hardly expect either of us to spend them all slowly stagnating in 12 Grimmauld Place.

One fact I held onto, which seemed to me to justify our staying there – there had been no more sickles in the doorframe. I almost managed to convince myself that I had imagined it, although of course I knew I hadn't. The offending coin was sitting on the dresser in our room, apparently forgotten about. Buying all our food from Muggle supermarkets, we had no use for it.

Whoever had come that day hadn't been back, and that, I told myself, was tantamount to their expressing approval of our new home. No one would bother us here, no one cared. So why should we move on?

The answer presented itself about three weeks after I had found that sickle, about three weeks after Kay had been attacked. I, ever naïve, had begun to hope that Kay was settling down, understanding that her current internment was for her own protecting, as she had given up pestering me, stopped demanding to be let out, stopped trying to come with me when I went shopping.

When I returned from the supermarket on a rainy Sunday afternoon, however, it was to find the front door ajar. At first, I was convinced that she had gone out to Diagon Alley in a fit of defiance, certain that she would return home soon covered in blood, or worse not return at all.

The truth, when I discovered it, was infinitely worse.

I closed the front door softly behind me and crept cautiously through the hall, careful not to disturb Mrs Black. As I approached the kitchen, I noted the rim of light shining from the cracks around the doorframe, and when I strained my ears, I heard low voices.

With a feeling dread in the pit of my stomach, I pushed the door open to find Kay, Greyback, and Samec sitting around the kitchen table.

They looked up when I entered. Kay's face flushed with momentary guilt, but she concealed it almost instantly with defiance. A small smile played about Samec's features, but Greyback's expression was inscrutable. "Remus. Good of you to join us."

"Well, I do live here," I replied softly. I was horribly aware that I was still tightly gripping the door handle, my knuckles whitening.

"Indeed. And Kay here was kind enough to invite us in," rasped Greyback. He gestured to Kay but did not look at her.

"They came here and I said they could come in," Kay put in quickly. Well, at least I knew she hadn't hunted them out for herself. I could believe her words – she had always been a terrible liar.

"And what were they doing here in the first place?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level, but of course Greyback wasn't fooled. "We just thought we'd check up on our two favourite werewolves. I heard there had been some bother in Diagon Alley recently."

"Oh, you _heard_ that, did you?" In that split second, I became certain that it had been Greyback and his cronies who had attacked Kay. Just to give them an excuse to visit, and more ammunition when they told her…

"We've just been saying how appalling it is," commented Samec lightly. "No werewolf is safe, is _she_, Remus?"

I am sure that only I noticed the slight stress on the word _she._ Samec was clever – cleverer than Greyback. He knew that I knew, and rather than deny it, he was using it to threaten me. I knew that I had to be extremely careful what I said – Kay was in more danger than she could have imagined from these two.

"Apparently not," I replied levelly, but he knew that I had understood, and his smirk broadened a little.

"Nice little haven you have here, Remus," added Greyback, and I saw in his face that he had noticed everything that had passed unspoken between Samec and myself. Kay, I suspected, hadn't. "Away from all that, you know."

"I had certainly hoped so." Try as I might, I couldn't keep the hostility out of my voice. With a jolt, I realised that Kay had shot me a glare at my cold words. How badly had they managed to brainwash her, in my absence?

Greyback noticed the look, and bared his teeth in a nauseating grin. "I think we should go, Milos," he hissed. "Don't want to get in the way."

"Indeed not." Samec was already standing, wrapping his cloak tightly around himself. "We'll see ourselves out, Remus."

"You don't have to go," interrupted Kay loudly, and I saw them exchange a look of vicious delight. "No, no, Princess, we'd best be getting along," Greyback told her, and even now, I saw Kay give an involuntary shudder when he called her "Princess."

I followed them out of the kitchen, wanting to be sure that they'd left. On the doorstep, Samec turned and flashed me a wicked grin. "We'll be seeing you soon, Kay," he called through to the kitchen, his eyes fixed on my furious face.

I could never have otherwise imagined feeling indebted to Walburga Black. Samec's words clearly disturbed her portrait, and the hallway was suddenly filled with shrieked curses. Greyback, who was ahead of Samec, actually stumbled and fell down the steps, and Samec took a step backwards in surprise, falling after him down the steps. Sirius' mothers bloodcurdling shrieks ringing in my ears, I stepped forwards to slam the door shut behind them, casting a disparaging look down at the tangle of confused limbs that was sprawled across our front path.

Kay had rushed out of the kitchen at Walburga's first shout, and was trying to wrestle her curtains closed. In grim silence, I joined her in the battle, and as soon as the vile woman was once again entombed in her hangings I followed Kay through to the kitchen.

She turned on me as soon as the door had closed behind us. "What is your problem, Remus?"

"Where would you like me to start?" I shot back, gripping the back of one of the kitchen chairs hard. She crossed the room to the fireplace, and began to stab violently at the flames with the tongs. "They'd only heard I'd been attacked, and wanted to check up on me…"

"Wanted to manipulate you to their cause, more like!" I snapped. Should I share my suspicions about the identity of her attackers?

"Well, they've sort of got a point, haven't they!" I winced at the words, even though I had known she had been thinking it for some time. "Your precious humans, Remus, what have they ever done for us? Apart from this!" She gestured furiously at the cut on the side of her head, which had not yet quite healed.

"They're not all like that, Kay! My friends…"

"One in Azkaban, the rest dead by his hand! If they're the only reason you think wizards might be worth something you must be insane! I don't know why you keep hanging on to that rubbish." Bitterness suddenly flooded her face. "Well, I do, but even you must see that however bloody in love you were with Sirius he never felt anything for you…"

"This is not about Sirius!"

"Except it is, Remus! You keep clinging to this myth that there are people out there who don't care that we are the way we are, but you're basing that entirely on a few corpses and a mass murderer…"

"No, I'm not." I forced my voice into an even calm, although how long I could maintain it, I didn't know. "Think of Dumbledore, Kay…"

"Mad as a box of chocolate frogs, everyone knows that! And too ridiculously tolerant to represent the wizarding community at large…"

"Douglas Abbott…"

"Threw us out on the streets!"

"He was getting death threats!"

"Which kind of proves my point!"

We glared at each other, both shaking with rage. I decided, on impulse, that things couldn't get any worse, so I threw everything I had at her. "And the thing is, Kay, Samec as good as told us that it was them who attacked you…"

She gave a start. "I'm sorry, was I unconscious for some of their visit? I didn't hear…"

"Because you weren't listening! And I'll tell you something else, I'll bet anything it was them who sent those threats to Douglas…"

She was looking at me as though I'd gone insane. "Why would they do that?"

"Have you not listened to anything I've ever said to you, Kay?" I exploded, uncomfortably aware that my eyes were popping out of my head in a passable impression of Sirius' mum. "They want an army of werewolves to take over…"

She waved my words aside. "Whatever, whatever. Even if that's true, and that's not exactly the way they tell it…"

"Well they wouldn't tell you explicitly, would they? They know you'd never…"

She spoke over my protestations, her voice rising so that she could drown me out. "You know as well as I do that Lucius Malfoy was making threats and spreading rumours and whatever else, so it clearly wasn't all those two, was it?"

"Malfoy and Greyback are old friends… Well, Greyback was more like his lapdog, I suppose, in Voldemort's day…"

"If Greyback was Malfoy's _lapdog,_ why would Malfoy be helping Greyback out in this ludicrious plot you've dreamed up?"

"Maybe to keep him happy, keep him on side? Or maybe Greyback threatened his children, he's got something of a track record…"

I saw her eyes flicker for a moment to my stomach, where we both knew my original bite scar crossed, white and angry, over my skin. She faltered, clearly having no answer to this, but then her expression hardened again. "I wasn't going to show you this…"

I was thrown. Something in her expression made me hesitate, and perhaps it was now with fear, not anger, that I gripped the back of the chair in front of me. Kay turned her back on me and went to rummage in one of the cupboards, and I waited, wondering what on earth I was about to be presented with.

What I hadn't been expecting was a shoebox.

She pushed the box across the table to me, and as it moved I heard the jangling of cold metal. Filled with sudden suspicion, I lifted off the lid, and stared down at the two dozen silver coins inside.

"I've been finding one in the doorframe every day for weeks," she said softly, and I thought at once of the sickle that was still lying, going unnoticed, on my bedside table. "Someone knows we're here, Remus, we're not safe even here, and…"

"It's Greyback and Samec," I interrupted stubbornly. "Who else knows we're here?"

"Andromeda…"

"Dromeda gave us a home, why would she do that just to chase us out of it?"

"Well, she obviously told her sister, and here we are…"

"Dromeda and Narcissa hate each other."

"Okay, but she told someone. How else did Fenrir and Milos know how to find us?" The use of their forenames rang around my head like a lingering curse. "People know where we are, Remus, and they want us out. They'll always want us out. They're never going to let us rest, Remus."

I realised then that she was on the verge of crying. She stared at me, tears brimming in her eyes, waiting for me to say something, admit she was right, offer some comfort.

But I couldn't do it. There was nothing I could say, because she was right. We were never going to be safe and happy and secure, not really. But could she really not see that Greyback and Samec weren't going to keep us safe either? And couldn't she see what it would mean, if we let them get to us?

"Could you bite a child, Kay?" I asked her softly, and she gazed at me, her lip trembling. "Could you attack Douglas Abbott, or Arthur Weasley, and their families? Because they'll ask you to. Greyback will ask you to, and you won't be able to say no. Because they'll make you give up every last little bit of human that you've got left in you."

"There you go again," she croaked, through a supressed sob. "Thinking we're human. When are you going to see, Remus, that no one else agrees? When are you going to see that there's no humanity to give up?"

Her words broke my heart, but I forced myself to reply. "No, Kay. What friends are they, if they want you to believe that you're a monster?" And then, coward that I am, I turned and left the room, because I didn't want to know what she would say in response, didn't want to hear her cry.


	24. 18th February, 1984

**AN: I know, I really am being horrendously sluggish with updating at the moment - as always I'm sorry, real life just won't get back into its box where it belongs. Still, we do finally have an update, which I'm going to dedicate to wordswhatareinmybrain, whose very kind review gave me the kick up the backside needed to get it finished (thank you, so much!). **

* * *

I knew, with absolute certainty, that Greyback would win in the end as he always did. And the worst thing was that it was no surprise, and I couldn't bring myself to blame Kay. I had had relative fortune in my life compared to most werewolves, and mine had still been a miserable existence. I cast my mind over all the times that I had felt myself filled with insatiable rage at what Kay had suffered, and frankly I only marvelled that she had remained as good-hearted as she had for as long as she had.

Yes, I'm ashamed to say that I realised, or rather decided, after that day, that it was too late to save Kay from Greyback's attentions, and that all I would be able to do, when the time came, would be to save myself.

And the Sorting Hat put me in Gryffindor.

Knowing as I did that the day would come very soon when Kay, like everyone else I had ever cared about, would disappear from my life, I entered a kind of limbo state. It didn't seem to be worth fighting or trying to convince Kay to stay; I was so sure that her mind was made up, that I decided instead to enjoy what little companionship might be left to me.

I sensed that Kay was disappointed in me. I was well aware that she wanted to continue the fight, and I saw the scorn in her face when she realised that I had given up. The scorn, and the hurt. I have wondered many times since whether things might have been different, if I had fought. Was she waiting and willing to be convinced? But any victory would only have been temporary, I am still sure of that. The postponing of our inevitable separation would only make it more painful when at last it came, I told myself, and so I decided to let things run their course. We didn't fight. For five days, we rattled around that vile house, carefully avoiding the bitter, twisted house elf and avoiding each other even more studiously.

And yet we continued to share a bed. Each night I would find myself being shaken awake by Kay, stirred from nightmares in which I watched huge, ugly beasts mauling furiously at the slender form of a she-wolf. Each night she looked at me, as though seeing my night-time fear had reaffirmed her belief that I would go on fighting for her in waking moments too, and for a short while it was as though we had gone right back to the beginning, to our first nights together in the forest, before the curse that had brought us together came between us. Eventually she would fall asleep, nestled against my side, and I would lie awake, silently debating with myself whether it might not be worth saying something come the morning, after all.

Each morning came and I said nothing, and the scorn and hurt crossed her eyes afresh before we went our separate ways, to spend another day in stony silence.

Five days, before the full moon came.

I knew, as we sat quietly at opposite ends of the cellar waiting for the change, that this was going to be a difficult month. However well we might be supressing our feelings as humans, our wolfish selves would have no such restraint. I watched Kay, wondering whether the same thoughts might have crossed her mind as well. She sat on the stone floor, leaning against the wall, her head back, eyes closed.

I knew I should say something, that it was more important now than ever for us to be comfortable around one another, but it was too late now. Any conversation would become an argument, and an argument, once the sun set, would become a fight.

I remember nothing of the transformation. I have tried to, many times, if only to prove to myself that I am not cowardly enough just to have blanked it out. I needed to relive it so that I knew what really happened and how much I was to blame.

But I'll never know, though I have, of course, guessed, how it happened that when I awoke the next morning, Kay was sprawled in a corner of the cellar, her limbs at odd angles and a large, angry gash across her stomach.

As ever, I felt dizzy and sick after the transformation, but I didn't hesitate. I staggered out of the cellar to our bedroom, where I pulled on the first clothes that came to hand – apparating naked into St Mungo's would have created too many additional problems – and found a blanket to wrap around Kay. Back in the cellar, I wrapped the cloth around her, and to my relief, she stirred slightly. I grasped her wrist tightly, taking solace in the faint pulse, and lay down beside her, wrapping my arms around her.

I closed my eyes. I knew I had to hurry, but at the same time splinching one or both of us would get us nowhere, so I paused, taking some deep breathes, waiting for my heart to slow to a reasonable pace before summoning every ounce of concentration I could muster.

As soon as we hit the floor, however, panic set in properly. I had deliberately aimed, not for the lobby, where there would be too many people to see our arrival, but for a ward I knew well – the Dai Llewellyn Ward for severe bites.

By some miraculous accident, there was only one patient in the ward, and she was asleep. A Trainee Healer sat at one end of the ward, pouring over a chess board, but as we arrived, he stood up, his eyes widening as he took in the two forms on the ground in front of him.

I staggered to my feet, looked the Trainee up and down quickly, and then turned my back on him and dashed up to the opposite end of the ward. This was where the office of the Healer-in-Charge was located, and the Healer-in-Charge was a woman I knew very well indeed.

"Remus?" Alma Holborn's thin, anxious face looked up at my from behind a stack of paperwork. Alma had been in charge of the dangerous bites ward for two decades, give or take, and her face was as familiar to me as my mother's.

"Help me," I said simply. Her eyes lingered for a moment on my arm, which I now noticed for the first time was bleeding from an angry looking cut, before getting to her feet and following me swiftly out onto the ward.

The Trainee had already managed to get Kay onto a bed and had peeled back the blanket to reveal the wound in her side. Alma strode quickly to the bed and peered closely at the gash. After what felt like a lifetime, but could only have been a few seconds, she looked up at me, her face deathly serious. "Did you bite her, Remus?"

"No!" I replied at once, and then hesitated. "Well, maybe, I don't know, but… she was already a werewolf, for years before I met her. But last night, I think we fought…"

"You think?"

"I don't remember."

Her lips had gone terribly thin. I watched her face as her eyes scanned the damage, and her gentle, clever fingers that had so often tended my own scars began to play over the rupture in Kay's pale flesh.

After almost a full minute, she said quietly, "I can heal her."

It took me a few moments to realise that the burning sensation in my eyes was tears of relief. I nodded several times, unable to speak, unable to thank her. She had saved my life more than once, but I had never been more grateful to her than I was in that moment.

She glanced up at me. "You're a bit beaten up yourself," she said, her eyes trailing again over the scratch on my arm, and waved the Trainee over. "Hippocrates? Clean Remus up for me, please."

There ensued a brief struggle, which culminated in the Trainee physically dragging me away from Kay's bedside and forcing me onto my own bed, where he quickly ministered to my injuries. I hadn't had anything so severe since my transformations alone in my old London flat, which themselves had been worse than anything I had suffered since Sirius, James and Peter became Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail, but compared to the chunk missing from Kay's side, they were barely noticeable, I felt. Judging by his agonised expression, Hippocrates did not agree.

As soon as he stepped away, my wounds bound, I swung my legs out of bed again. Hippocrates tried to stop me, but his attempt was somewhat half-hearted – he probably realised that it was hopeless.

Alma didn't say anything when I appeared at Kay's bedside, facing her. Already under that marvellous woman's attentions, the wound was clean, and didn't look quite so terrible now that it was no longer oozing blood. I realised that I hadn't stopped to see how much blood was on the floor of the cellar – had Kay been losing it for hours? She was so pale.

"Is she…?" Alma looked sharply up at me. "She'll live."

I nodded again. I knew really that Alma would never have said she could heal her if she couldn't, but I had to keep hearing it, because with her eyes closed and her face white, Kay looked far from healable to me. I reached out to take her limp hand in mine.

"Remus?"

"Yes?" I looked up at her and found that she was frowning slightly, although she didn't look at me. "I have to ask. How did this happen?"

I stared at her. I understood why she needed to know, but I was suddenly stuck as to how to answer. It was such a long story, and I wasn't sure how much I could get away with filtering out. "We… we've been living together for about two years. Normally we make the transformations better for each other, but this time we were angry with each other and…"

I tailed off. Alma glanced up at me with a piercing look. "I take it this wasn't a tiff over whose turn it was to buy the milk."

I shook my head slowly, though it hadn't been a question really. "Not exactly."

"Hmm." She was looking down at Kay again, now engaged in cleaning up some of the smaller scratches that surrounded the gash in her side. "You know, Remus, two werewolves can be dangerous to one another. You should have found somewhere else for one of you to transform last night."

My stomach churned with guilt. "I know, I just…"

"If this relationship is going to be safe for you both, Remus, you have to learn how to deal with certain things. No matter how hard it is, how much you might want to pretend a fight doesn't matter, you know it does at full moon. Your lycanthropy has to come first, Remus, because you're never going to be able to shut it out."

She was right, of course. By trying to pretend we weren't angry with one another, Kay and I had put ourselves in unreasonable danger. It could equally have been me lying on that bed. Or both of us, and if we had both been wounded, how would we have got to safety? We could both have been lying on the floor in Grimmauld Place, bleeding out.

I had always been careful about letting anyone get too close to me, always known it would be too dangerous. James, Lily, Peter, Sirius – I had tried to shut all of them out, but they had been persistent. With Kay it had been different. I had never sought to keep her out, because I had thought I couldn't hurt her any worse than she had already been hurt.

I looked down at her slight form on the hospital bed in front of me and realised now that that wasn't true.

And yet…

"I know she's not safe with me," I said, and knew that Alma could hear that I was having to fight to keep my voice steady. "But… Greyback's after her, Alma."

Alma looked swiftly up at me. She knew, better than anyone, why Greyback filled me with such fear and disgust.

"And that's why…" She gestured to the gash.

I nodded, unable to speak. In trying to save Kay from Greyback, I had put her at my own mercy. And now that I saw what I had done to her…

_It's still not the same,_ I told myself fiercely. _You might have done this to her, but you would never do what they will. They'll turn her into a monster. They'll teach her to believe that's all she's worth. And they'll make her…_

I couldn't make myself list the terrible crimes Kay would be forced into by Greyback, not even in my head. It was not only Kay I had to protect, I knew – it was the victims Greyback and Samec would force upon her.

And I knew that nothing I could ever inflict upon Kay, even as the wolf, could ever compare to what they would make her do, what they would make her become. Which was why, when she woke up, I was going to have to prove my house colours once and for all, and get up the courage to confront her again.


	25. 19th February, 1984 (Part 1)

It took until mid-afternoon for Kay to wake up properly. Now and then she stirred, before that, but aside from tightening my grip on her hand and feeling her squeeze mine in response, we were unable to communicate.

Eventually, however, her eyes fluttered open properly, and she looked up at me, her brow furrowing. "Remus?"

"Hey." I brushed a stray hair out of her face and smiled down at her. No matter how nervous I might be about the conversation that was to follow, the smile was genuine. "Welcome back."

"What happened?"

The question I had been dreading. "I don't know, exactly," I told her truthfully. "I think we fought during the transformation."

"Am I hurt?"

"You'll mend." This was from Alma, who I realised had approached quietly as soon as she saw that Kay was awake. I glared at her, and she raised an eyebrow before retreating again.

Kay was looking down at the bandages wrapped around her torso. "Is it bad?"

"Pretty bad," I confessed.

She stared at the bandages for a few moments longer, as though deep in thought. "I suppose… I suppose I might have done it to myself," she said hesitantly, and I forced myself to smile, even though inside I felt like crying. Even now, she was trying to protect me. "I suppose you might have done," I conceded, although I was about as convinced as she had sounded.

"Did I hurt you?"

I gave a bitter snort. "Barely. A few scratches, nothing worth worrying about."

"Okay." Her eyes flickered shut again, and for a moment I thought she'd fallen back to sleep, but then, still with her eyes closed, she said, "I suppose we fought as wolves because we're not letting ourselves fight as people."

She had hit the nail on the head with such accuracy that it hurt. "Yes," I agreed simply.

"Maybe we should have the fight, then."

"Maybe we should." I was beginning to lose face again. I couldn't bring myself to argue with her when she lay so small and vulnerable, in the hospital bed where I had put her.

As though reading my mind, she snapped her eyes open again. "Oh, grow a pair, Remus."

"Fine." I took a deep, steadying breath. "Kay, I don't want you ever to let Greyback and Samec into our house again."

"Why not." It was a challenge, not a question.

"You know why."

"I know what you always tried to brainwash me into believing. Aren't we going to have a proper conversation about this instead of you just telling me what to believe?"

I blinked at her. Was that what I had been doing? Well yes, in a way, of course it was, but only because I knew I was right, with an absolute certainty that I had never felt about anything else in my life.

"What exactly is it about their way of life that appeals to you?" I asked, through gritted teeth.

"The fact that they don't spend their entire lives running and hiding."

"Because they make people run and hide from them instead."

"Well, if it's a choice between one or the other…"

"It's not as simple as that, though, is it?" I retorted impatiently. "It's not hunt or be hunted. Okay, so we sometimes struggle to find work or somewhere to live, but they spend each full moon trying to inflict this hell on other people as well…"

"It's only hell because we make it hell for ourselves, Remus! They seem happy enough."

"Greyback's a psychopath, of course he's happy ruining lives!"

"But he doesn't ruin them, it's not like he leaves his creations to look after themselves…"

"He did with me!"

"No, he didn't! He's been trying to look after you ever since he bit you, it's you who keeps running away!"

I found myself laughing, a dry, harsh sound that made me wince internally, and yet I couldn't stop. "Look after me? Kay, Greyback doesn't _look after_ anyone, he just doesn't like losing…"

"Whereas you, on the other hand, profess to look after someone and then maul them half to death."

I choked as the last laugh died in my throat. "Kay, that was…"

"Unforgiveable?"

"Yes. But…"

"But what?"

"It was the wolf, Kay." I let my voice drop, once again forced it to steady. "You should understand that better than anyone. But Greyback, he'll attack even when it's not full moon, because he's just a monster." Almost without realising I was doing it, I traced the ghost of the cut on her face with my forefinger.

She turned her face away. "We're all monsters, Remus, how many more times?"

"Before I'll believe it of you? Always one more."

"And of yourself?" Her head snapped back so that she was staring at me again, and I shivered under her gaze. Not challenging, exactly – just resigned, grim, inconvincible. "You never feel like a monster, Remus?"

I sighed, and my hand came to rest on her shoulder. I stroked the side of her neck absentmindedly with my finger, and for a moment she leaned into it, like a faithful dog having its ear scratched. "Today, yes."

How could I not, seeing what I had done to her? (Assuming, of course, that this was my fault – the other option was there, but I never seriously entertained it for a moment.) "Once a month, yes. But as long as I carry on fighting the monster I know I'm not really one."

A tear trickled down the side of her cheek. "I wish I could believe that, Remus." To this day I don't know whether she wished she could believe that _she_ wasn't a monster, or that _I_ wasn't.

"Ah, come on," I said gently, wiping the tear away. "You never hurt anyone, Kay, how could you? Don't let them make you."

Alma made me go home that night. I had a deep sense of foreboding, but she insisted, and Kay, pale and tired, nodded slowly, closing her eyes, and I knew I had been dismissed.

And so I returned to Grimmauld Place, alone but not alone. I awoke hourly, sometimes shaking from the memories of Kay, human, writhing in fear beneath me as I, the wolf, scratched viciously at her face and arms; otherwise trembling as the shadow of Sirius' face drifted before my eyes, laughing mockingly. I wasn't sure which was worse. Why, tonight of all nights, had Sirius chosen to return, to inflict his unwelcome presence like a particularly persistent ghost? Come three in the morning I abandoned all hope of sleep and wandered the house, trying to find a room that didn't somehow reek of his memory. In the end I opened the door to Regulus' room, the door which had probably been locked since his death some five years previously. The dust seemed to accord with the conclusion.

I curled up in the middle of the single four-poster bed. I didn't close my eyes, didn't try to sleep, just maintained my melancholy vigil until the dawn. Sirius' memory seemed no more willing to enter this room than his living self had been; all that haunted this room was the ghost of an eighteen-year-old boy, dying a coward's death at the hands of those he had once emulated.

Scarcely a cheerful bedfellow, but better than what awaited me in the rest of the house.

By dawn, I was ready to go back to St Mungo's. The misery I had suffered at the hands of my sleeping thoughts had done nothing to convince me that I should never have left. I showered quickly, attempted some cereal – I may as well have been eating wood shavings – and hurried out of the house as quickly as I could. As I closed the door behind me, I made up my mind: Kay and I would not stay there another night. The house was toxic; had watching the Black brothers grow up not taught me that many years ago?

As I walked, something in me began to lift. We would go somewhere else. Leave London. Go somewhere no one knew us, settle down again – maybe even abroad. I'd heard Easter Europe was more tolerant of people like us, perhaps we could be happy there, for a while. Once we moved away from London, away from Greyback, away from Samec, away from Sirius thrice-accursed Black, Kay would remember that our lives weren't always so bad, would realise that following Greyback could never make her happier than living the life of a (mostly) tame werewolf.

I don't think I ever believed it for a moment, deep down, but for a few glorious minutes, I managed to convince myself that I did.

When I walked out onto the Dai Llewellyn Ward, a cursory glance told me all that I needed to know. The room was not large; there was no one to hide, and it was perfectly plain that only one bed was occupied, by the woman who had been here when we arrived.

"Where's Kay?" I demanded of the Trainee Healer, although I already knew the answer.

He jumped, startled. "She went with her friend… Semec, was it?"

I didn't bother to correct him, but instead swept through the ward to Alma's office.

"You let her go with Samec?"

Alma looked up, startled. "Remus, I know this ward is a second home to you, but patients aren't supposed to storm into my office uninvited…"

"I'm not a patient."

"Visitors, then. And you're not a visitor either, she went home with your friend."

"Milos Samec," I told her through gritted teeth, "Is no friend of mine."

Alma's brow furrowed. "He said you'd sent him. Kay seemed to believe him."

"Of course she did." Just like that, the anger swam out of me and I deflated, leaning wearily against the doorpost. I could imagine exactly how it had happened. Of course Greyback couldn't come himself; Alma would have recognised him in an instant. Samec, though, was another matter – he would have come along offering Kay a quick way out, and she, in spite of everything I'd said, everything I'd done, everything I'd planned, must have decided to take it.

"Who is he, then? This Samec?" Alma was watching me closely and I think she may have guessed my answer before I gave it. "One of Greyback's lot."

Her lips pursed. "She didn't seem the type."

"She's not." I looked up, stared Alma straight in the eye, and she recoiled slightly under the sudden ferocity of my gaze. "She's young and confused and lost and scared. And I failed her."

As I said the words, the weight of my own failure came crashing down around me. I had had a chance to introduce Kay to a whole new way of life. I had taught her magic, introduced her to books, shown her that there are people who don't care the certain other people have a furry little problem. Not just the dead or the condemned, not just James and Lily and Peter and Sirius – living, loving people, Dumbledore and Arthur and Douglas and Ruth.

And yet I had also brought unimaginable danger into her life, and untellable sorrow. In the Scottish forests she had been safe from all that, safe from the glares, the whispers, the constant reminders that maybe people like us aren't completely human, after all. Safe from the monsters who wanted to steal her away and destroy everything that had been good about her.

And there had been so much good.

Alma was watching me steadily. "Remus…"

And I knew what she was going to say. Some great long speech about how it wasn't my fault, how I did all I could, how some things are beyond our control, how some people just can't be helped.

But Kay could have been helped, maybe. Just not by me.

So I didn't let her go on. I didn't want to hear it. "Goodbye, Alma," I said, and before she had time to speak, to try to convince me to stay, I disapparated.

* * *

**I swear, a day may come when I will post an update that cuts Remus a break. But it is not this day. I'M SORRY.**

**Actually, based on the current plan I have things should start looking up in, at most, four chapters time. So hang on in there, people...**


	26. 19th February, 1984 (Part 2)

**So, I've been having some problems writing Remus for a while, but the good news is he seems to have come back to me tonight. Hopefully he'll stay around for a while and updates might go back to being a bit more frequent.**

* * *

I misjudged my re-appearance slightly, and stumbled on the top step of 12 Grimmauld Place. Steadying myself on the railing, I fumbled in my pocket for the key and let myself into the house.

It took only a few minutes to ascertain that Kay's things, such as they were, were still there. I hesitated over them for a long minute. It didn't seem right to keep them, but could I really leave them here?

Because leave here I must. Admittedly when I had decided it, I had intended to walk away with Kay at my side, but I didn't want to stay here alone, any more than I had wanted us to stay together. Now this house would be haunted for me by Kay's ghost, as well as Sirius'.

It didn't take me long to throw my own possessions into my battered trunk. I collected Kay's clothes together, along with the books she had brought for herself when we left Abbotts', and left them in a neat pile on the kitchen table. That way, she would find them easily if she ever came back for them.

I was about to leave the kitchen when something caught my eye. On the mantelpiece above the fire, there stood a small carriage clock. I had noticed it when we first moved in, and scarcely given it another thought, but now I approached it, an idea forming in my mind.

Upon inspection, my suspicions were confirmed – the clock was formed from twisted gold. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands. So small.

It fit into my case easily.

Once the decision had been made, I began to comb the house. There were so many things in that house – small, easily concealable things – that must be worth a considerable amount. They were no use to the last living Black heir, and frankly, they were the least that he owed me.

Perhaps if I sold some of these things, I could afford to get to Europe.

There wasn't much downstairs to pillage. I was reluctant to take any of the silverware, since it was all adorned with the family crest, and it would be obvious that I had stolen it. But Walberga Black's jewellery was a different question, as were the twisted candlesticks on either side of Orion's bed.

I emerged onto the landing from Sirius' parents room with a gold plated water jug in one hand and a bejewelled compact mirror in the other, and came to an abrupt halt in front of one particular door. The door that I had been determined always to leave closed.

_Fuck that,_ I thought now, and dropping my spoils, I threw the door to Sirius' bedroom open and stormed in.

A flood of red and gold hit me. Gryffindor scarves and banners adorned every available space, in an open show of defiance against his Slytherin family. In the gaps, he had fixed up Muggle posters, motorbikes mostly, one with two bikini-clad Muggle girls draped over it.

_Yep,_ I confirmed to myself. _Straight, basically._

I felt a sudden surge of anger. Not at the girls – their dead smiles were creepy rather than intimidating – but at the Gryffindor colours. Coward I might be, but I still thought I was more a Gryffindor than Sirius Black had ever been. No true Gryffindor would have betrayed James and Lily. I wouldn't have betrayed James and Lily.

_Wouldn't you?_ The treacherous little words in my head were spoken in Sirius' voice.

"No!" I told him aloud. "I'm better than you, Black. I was always better than you."

_A beast of the night, better than me? At least I was human._

"Were you?" I knew that I was yelling but I didn't care. Certainly I had gone mad, but there was no one there to see me so what did it matter? "Were you ever human, Black?"

_I was always all man, Remus, I assure you._

"Stop fucking flirting with me!" Yep, I had definitely gone mad and I definitely didn't care. "Stop joking, stop messing around, stop acting like some untouchable aloof deity because you're not, Black, you're a cheating, cowardly, lying bastard!"

Sirius' laugh rang in my ears, and unable to lash out at him, I reached instead for the Gryffindor hangings that seemed to be openly mocking me. _Not really a Gryffindor, not really a friend, not really human,_ I repeated to myself in my head like a mantra.

The bastard had used some sort of permanent sticking charm on the hangings. Try as I might I couldn't get them down, so I attacked the walls instead. The posters were just as well fixed, so I began throwing the bedding onto the floor like a child having a tantrum. Still his laughter taunted me, and nothing I did would make him quieten…

I spun desperately around, looking for something, anything, I could do some serious damage to, when something made me paused. On the wall beside the bed was a photograph of four breathtakingly familiar, yet horribly strange fifteen-year-old boys.

In the centre of the picture, Sirius and James had their arms flung lazily around each other's shoulder. Sirius' free arm rested lazily on Peter's head, while James' curled protectively around my own waist.

I stood absolutely still, blinking steadily at the picture. The laughter in my ears was getting louder and louder, and now I could see him, too, laughing at me out of the shiny paper, and I was laughing too, and James, and Peter, and THEY HAD NOTHING TO LAUGH ABOUT SO WHY WOULDN'T THEY STOP?

I lunged forward once again, and tried to tear the picture from the wall. As I might have guessed, nothing happened. I mauled at it with my finger nails but he seemed to have put some sort of varnishing spell over it, protecting it from malicious attacks. Was it me he had had in mind, I wondered sardonically, or his loving mother?

With a yelp of frustration, I fell onto the bed, which I had already stripped of its bedding. There I lay, where he had lain, and there were too many thoughts in my head and I couldn't hear them any way over all that DAMN LAUGHTER.

And then there it was, one last hope, one last chance to shut the bastard up forever. Another photograph, not pasted to the wall this time, but in a small gilded frame on the bedside table. Just two boys, this time, and for a moment I assumed it was James but then I realised that it wasn't.

I remembered this photo. We had been sitting underneath our favourite tree down by the lake at Hogwarts. Or rather I had been sitting there, reading of course. James, Sirius and Peter had been scattered hopelessly around me, playing exploding snap, I think, but Sirius had lost or gotten bored or both, and as the other two played on he crawled over to where I sat, unsuspecting, and jumped on me. I had yelped and James and Peter had looked up as Sirius, arms around my neck, fell into my lap. Peter had had the camera and the Sirius in the photo was trying to sit up, breathless with laughter, one arm still slung around my neck as I looked pityingly down at him. I could see, when I looked closely, that I was trying not to laugh.

It didn't occur to me to wonder why Sirius had chosen this particular photo for his bedside table. All that I could think was that this was it, this had to be it, this had to make the laughter stop. I wrenched up the picture and flung it across the room, where it crashed into the wall and I heard the shattering of glass. The laughter quietened but didn't stop.

I slid off the bed and followed it. The glass had smashed completely, leaving the photograph half hanging out of the frame. I lifted the picture out gingerly between my thumb and forefinger, and stared at it for a moment before, quickly and very deliberately, ripping it in two.

Ghost-Sirius' last laugh died in his throat. In my hands lay the two pieces of paper, the one with my head and shoulders on it, the other with my legs and Sirius' ridiculous, languishing figure.

I stood up, tucking the fragment of myself into my pocket. I couldn't leave myself here, surrounded by broken glass and false Gryffindor colours and the taste and smell and memory of Sirius.

I snatched up the things I had dropped in the hallway and ran downstairs, where I dropped them into my trunk. Then, very quickly, before I could find something else to distract me, I snapped the trunk shut, hoisted it off the carpet, and strode out into the square outside, closing the door behind me, I hoped, forever.

x-x-x-x-x

Two hours later I was at Gringotts. I would sell the things I'd stolen once I made it to Europe, where it was less likely that Dromeda or Narcissa would see and recognise any of them. I wasn't sure which would be worse – Narcissa would have been more violent, but after Dromeda had been so kind to us, I would have hated to let her know how I was repaying her. Not that she'd ever have inherited any of these things anyway, since she had been disinherited even earlier than Sirius.

For now, however, I intended to empty my vault. A reasonable amount had accumulated in there whilst I worked at Abbotts', and I had been being careful not to spend it. It wasn't a fortune but it would be at least enough to get me to France.

The goblin who had led me to my vault watched me curiously as I swept every last knut into a bag. "Going somewhere, Mister Lupin?"

"Yep." I didn't feel any need to discuss my plans with this creature – if nothing else, his slightly taunting tone hardly inspired confidence. What he said next, however, made me spin around to face him.

"You do realise that no matter how far you run, there's nowhere someone like you can call home."

"What do you mean?" I asked unsteadily. "Someone like me?"

The goblin leered nastily at me. "Goblins can smell werewolves, Mister Lupin."

"You can _smell_ us?"

"Indeed." His eyes lingered on my moneybag. "Incidentally, we do not, however, fear you."

"Well, that's good to know." His gaze was unsettling me. "Can I, er, leave?" I was still trying to work out how on earth a goblin could identify a werewolf just by the _smell._ I supposed it came with not being human – after all, I could smell other werewolves, and probably goblins too, when I was a wolf.

"You could. Or you could stay."

"Er…" I was starting to wonder whether I was going to be _allowed_ to leave. "Why would I want to do that, exactly?"

The goblin was looking appraisingly at me. "We have uses for humans here in Gringotts, Mister Lupin."

I was desperately trying to remember whether there had been any references in History of Magic to goblins eating humans. Generally gruesome murders, yes, but I had no reason to believe that I was about to be boiled alive.

Apart from the greedy look in the little bastard's eyes.

"Indeed," he went on, and I swear he actually licked his lips. "But most humans don't find the work to their tastes."

"Well… hang on. Work?"

"Yes," said the goblin. "Maintenance, mostly. Those carts – well, it's devilishly boring work for a goblin, repairing them."

I squinted at him. "Are you offering me a job?"

He grinned, and I felt a sickening lurch in my stomach which I tried to ignore. "What do you think, Mister Lupin?"

"I think…" What did I think? I thought I didn't want to spend another moment with this goblin. I thought I wanted to go to France, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, who knew where, and breath fresh air and walk down streets without people glaring at me and knowing what I was.

But how long would that last?

And how many more opportunities would I be given to work for someone who knew what I was and _just didn't care_?

"I think…"

"Spit it out, Mister Lupin."

Devilishly boring work for a goblin. Devilishly boring work for me too, I expected. But it would be quiet and there would be no people, which appealed.

"Yes," I said, surprising myself.

The goblin grinned. "Excellent. Come with me."


	27. 15th December, 1985

There is very little to be said about what turned out to be the next two years of my life. As I had predicted, the work at Gringotts was desperately dull. So dull and so poorly paid, in fact, that I was one of the least unsavoury characters working for the goblins. My workmates included a vampire and a couple of hags. I have never been more convinced of my humanity than when I slashed my hand on a protruding nail, and returned after going to clear up to find Kruv lapping up droplets of my blood from the dusty ground.

When Gornuk, the goblin who had employed me, told me that Gringotts provided accommodation for its workers, I was a little reluctant to accept, assuming as I did that the rooms would effectively be underground caves, such as the goblins were accustomed to living in. In fact, I discovered, there was a block of shabby flats behind the main Gringotts building and one of these flats, a grey, crumbling room with a small bathroom and a stove in the corner, became my home. It was hardly luxury but it was safe. The goblins provided a spare vault for my transformations; they weren't pleasant, but there was no way for me to escape and even without silencing charms, no one could hear me.

It was a tedious existence, but not an unhappy one. I was safe, as were those around me. I had work, I had a purpose, I had a small amount of independence, and most importantly, there was not one person working at the bank who didn't know what I was, yet also not one person who cared. Kruv even gloomily admitted that he envied me: "If I only needed to drink blood once a month, I could almost have lived a normal life."

I made sympathetic noises, even as I pulled my arm away – he had been lifting my hand so as to bite at my wrist, as though he thought I wouldn't notice if simultaneously engaged in conversation. He gave a melancholy shrug and we both went back to work.

I worked there for so long, uninterrupted, that I began to lose my habitual belief that someone or something would inevitably come to disrupt whatever stability I had found for myself. When that disruption came, therefore, I was entirely unprepared for it.

I was sprawled on my bed, reading the _Daily Prophet_, when Kruv knocked at my door. He entered and dropped an envelope onto my bed. "This was delivered to me by accident."

I took the envelope. It was, indeed, addressed to me, in small, cramped writing that I did not recognise. I flipped the letter over and looked at the seal, my eyes narrowing. I did not recognise the mark: a wand, with a spiral of chains looped around it.

As Kruv hovered in the doorway, watching, I broke the seal and pulled out the letter. I unfolded the heavy parchment to see that the letter was not especially long, and written in the same handwriting as the address.

_Dear Mr Lupin,_

_As you may be aware, Azkaban is currently host to one Sirius Black, detained for the murders of Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles in 1981._

_It is Azkaban's policy to allow prisoners to receive visitors in exceptional circumstances. Mr Black has requested a half hour interview with you, and given the current situation, we are minded to grant his request._

_We therefore ask that you present yourself at Azkaban prison at noon on the 28__th__ of December. You are under no obligation to attend, but please note that we allow these opportunities very rarely. If you are not present at that time, it is unlikely that another chance will arise._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Madame Amelia Bones_

_Governess of Azkaban_

Kruv was still standing in the doorway, and I sensed him watching me with a strange look on his face. Beneath the usual slight longing as he thought of all the fresh blood coursing through my veins, I could sense that he was intrigued. I supposed I had probably gone white.

"Go," I told him hoarsely, without looking up. He hesitated for a moment, before slinking out so quietly that I only realised he had gone when the door swung shut. As soon as I knew I was alone, I leapt up from the bed and began to pace.

_As you may be aware…_ Did she honestly think I could have forgotten? Or that the news had somehow passed me by in the first place?

_The murders of Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles_… Not to mention, of course, James and Lily Potter. Bile rose in my throat and I staggered through to the bathroom. I retched but nothing happened. I was completely empty.

_Requested an interview with you…_ Who the hell did he think he was? Did he really think, ever in a million years, that I would want to see him again? _Don't you?_ asked a voice – his voice – in my head.

_No._

_Exceptional circumstances… current situation…_ What exactly was that supposed to mean? The answer arrived in my head, unbidden and fully formed. _He's dying._

What else could it be? They sometimes allowed that, didn't they? Visits from relatives, when a prisoner was about to die anyway? Maybe I wasn't a relative, but who else was there? His parents and brother dead… One cousin he hadn't seen since he was twelve, another he hadn't seen since he was sixteen… And one last cousin, who was locked up where he was.

And the question came again, _what else could it be?_ I was scanning hard for alternatives. Maybe he had something to tell me, something to exonerate him… But I cast that thought away at once. If that were true, surely he would tell Madame Bones, not me? What use could I be to him?

And if he was just going to beg me for forgiveness, try to make me understand… Well, I didn't want to hear it.

Better believe he was dying.

_And let him die._

Maybe if he was dead, I would be free of him. Every time I felt that I had shaken him off he would come back, unwanted, unwelcome, unrelenting, and disturb whatever fragile peace I had created for myself in his absence.

What could he possibly have to say to me in the mean time? What could I possibly want to hear?

_No_, I decided, flopping down onto the bed. _Let him die alone. Better for everyone that way._

Except for him.

Who cared?

Maybe I did, a bit.

_The cell that had once been so familiar was strange to me now. I remembered it as thought from a dream. Even asleep, I realised what a ridiculous thought that was. The cell had only ever been from a dream, only ever a figment of my imagination._

_I was, at least, on the right side of the door. Outside the cell. And there, gripping the bars so hard that his knuckles turned white, was he. And the stupid bloody bastard was grinning._

_"And there you go," I said softly. "You whistled and here I am. Who knew werewolves could be so easily trained."_

_He reached his hands out through the bars towards me and I went to him, hating myself yet unable to stop my feet from moving. As I came to a halt in front of him his hands found my arms and gripped me tightly, just above the elbows._

_I forced myself to lean back, to turn my face slightly. He couldn't reach me, not if I…_

_He pulled me and I glided (there is no other word for it) forward, through the bars which dissolved around me as though made of mist. And there I was, and there he was, inches apart in that tiny cell, and I knew instinctively that the bars would not be so ghostlike now if I tried to leave._

_All such coherent thought was dashed as his mouth ploughed into mine. As ever he was fierce, rough, disarming, utterly unstoppable, not that I could or would have tried. Even now, the graze of his teeth against my lower lip spent spirals of longing coursing through my body, and I opened my mouth and my mind and let him in._

_Everything was Sirius. I could feel him, smell him, taste him – but, having clamped my eyes tight shut, I could not see him. I let them flicker open for a moment and saw the deep, glistening grey boring into mine, with a force that made me close my eyes again against him._

_He forced me backwards, and there it was, as predicted, the cold, hard pressure of the bars of his cell, grinding hard against my back as his hands ran down my sides, one arm wrapping tightly around me, the other making its way back up my front, assaulting the buttons of my shirt._

_I had gone numb. Or rather, not numb, for I could feel everything and it drove me insane, but I had lost control of my limbs. I could neither reciprocate nor restrain as he pulled off my clothes, his mouth and hands chasing across every inch of all of me. I opened my eyes again, allowed myself to take in the familiar sight of him, there to tease and please and make wild and send mad, and realised that in spite of it all, I had missed him. I loved him and hated him and willed him to carry on and wished him dead, all in a single moment._

The moment ended as I shuddered awake in a sticky mess.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn and fuck and blast and shit and _would he ever leave me alone?_

I stared at the ceiling, trembling and crying and breathing heavily. Had I missed him, really? Of course I missed the boy I had been at school with, but he was long gone, I knew that, I had made my peace with that, so far as was possible, which it really wasn't at all. But _that_ version of Sirius, had I missed _him?_ So many times I had wished it over, and yet just now I had been, not glad, but comforted to see him again.

Would I be comforted, too, to see the real Sirius? The murderer, haggard, aged, probably dying and definitely, unquestionably, unrecognisable from our schooldays?

Besides, whatever he wants you for, I told myself dryly, _that_ isn't it.

And so again I began the endless, fruitless searching. I had been trying all night to find the explanation, to find a reason to go, an excuse not to. I couldn't now believe I had fallen asleep, my mind had been so occupied – I certainly hadn't been aware of a slow loss of consciousness, of anything other than burning questions and itching eyes and a dry mouth as I lay and wondered if I would ever sleep again.

Now, I almost wished I hadn't.


End file.
